


where weary eyes no more will weep

by ghostlysleuth



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Co-Parenting, Ellie Williams Gets Therapy, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Medium Burn, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Reconciliation, Recovery, Rekindled Romance, Touch-Starved Ellie Williams, exes to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlysleuth/pseuds/ghostlysleuth
Summary: "Ellie knows, instantly, that she doesn’t belong in Jackson anymore.She thinks of Tommy and the betrayal and vitriol in his voice. She thinks of Dina, turned away from her and sobbing softly. She thinks of JJ, weeping, afraid and confused by her episodes.She thinks of Jesse, limp on the floor.She thinks of Joel.Her heart aches for what used to be her life. She misses Dina. She misses JJ. She misses laughing. She misses being enveloped in warmth. She misses belonging.She shouldn’t turn back."--Ellie returns to Jackson and slowly begins to carve a path to recovery, to humanity, to her family again.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & JJ (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Ellie & Maria (The Last of Us), Ellie & Tommy (The Last of Us)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 232
Collections: Best I’ve read





	1. that shattered feeling, well, the cause of it's a lesson learned

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to try my hand at writing a hard-earned happy ending for Ellie and Dina, as well as taking a look at a few other characters, the relationships that connect them, and bringing life to Jackson. Heavily inspired by a lot of the brilliant fics in the Ellie/Dina tag (Shaken by a Low Sound, waiting for dawn, Absolution, Try to Make a Fire Burn Again, and Bad Blood, to name a few). 
> 
> I'm gonna see where this takes me. This game is heart-shattering and I suppose in a way this is my way of coping. I hope you enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from “To Binge” by Gorillaz ft. Little Dragon. 
> 
> (Also, holy shit, there are a lot of songs about people wronging their partner and either wanting to get better or stewing in their own sadness about it. Yeesh.)

They set them up in a neighborhood adjacent to the greenhouses, in one of the biggest houses Ellie’s ever seen that isn’t destroyed or wrecked in some way. She must look as nervous as she feels because Joel gently guides her to the steps with a hand at her back.

“So, um --” she starts, hands fidgeting as they enter, “This is all ours then?”

“Yep,” says Joel quietly, with his hands at his hips, “Quite the change, ain’t it?”

“No kidding.” 

The house is almost disturbingly clean, all the floorboards intact and not one overgrown with plant life. She walks through the foyer and peers into a large room on her right -- a living room, it seems. With a couch that’s mostly unblemished and not torn open or rotting, a tall, empty bookshelf against the wall, sanded and freshly lacquered, and a knit rug laid out over the majority of the floor in the room.

When she exits the room to look around more, she swears she’d lose her sense of direction if it weren’t the front door on her left. Instead of venturing further, she stays where she is and stares warily down the hall and, with some unease, to the stairs leading up.

It’s all so... _perfect_. It makes her uncomfortable.

“Ellie,” Maria calls gently from one of the other rooms -- a sitting room? It just has a table in it. “You wanna go upstairs, maybe pick out your room?”

“Heh, yeah,” Tommy pipes up, “You must be tired from stuffin’ your face like that.”

“Um,” she hesitates, looks at the stairs again.

It’s weird. Right? Her and Joel living in a house together? She isn’t sure how she thought they’d end up -- well, she has, sort of, but those thoughts usually end with one or both of them dead -- but living in a massive comfy-looking house like the characters do in all the books and comics she’s read definitely hadn’t been one of them. All those characters had been…

Well, they were something she and Joel aren’t. Not by definition, anyway. Not in a way that either of them were willing to talk about, since their argument after he tried to part ways with her.

“Hey.” 

Joel’s hand on her shoulder shakes her from her thoughts. When she looks at him, he’s frowning, but not in the way he usually does. He looks worried, nervous like her. A rarity for Joel, most times.

“Er--s-sorry,” she says and gently shrugs his hand off. “It’s just so...different from what I’m used to. Y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.” He looks around, puts his hand on his hips, and scuffs his boot against the clean floor. “Can’t imagine it’ll be easy, adjustin’ to everything. ‘Specially after, uh...”

He doesn’t need to finish for her to get the point. “Mm-hmm.”

“But, hey, it has to get worse ‘fore it gets better.”

“I guess so.”

There’s a long stretch of awkward silence then, with Ellie rubbing her arm and Joel pretending to examine where the wall meets the ceiling, before he clears his throat.

“Look, if...if it ain’t really your thing, Tommy says there’s a li’l, uh, granny flat out in the backyard you might like.”

Ellie looks up to quirk a brow at him. “A what?”

“A granny flat. C’mon, I’ll show ya,” Tommy says, already leading them out through the backdoor. “S’ a l’il apartment, basically, meant for one or two people. Needs a bit ‘a fixin’ up, since it’s been used as a storage shed up till now.”

The “granny flat” in question is shabby-looking compared to the house. Tommy opens it up and flicks the light on, and the three of them peer inside. It’s small and barren, save for a few boxes and crates left over from whatever haul had happened before they’d arrived in town. There’s a counter and cabinets on the far end of the room, and a massive garage door to their right. The light flickers before she can squint too hard at anything.

“...It’s a garage.”

“It’s perfect for you, Ellie. It’s tiny and dingy,” Joel says, ruffling her hair, “jus’ like you.”

“Fuck you,” Ellie laughs and bats him away.

They all step away and Tommy closes the door. “It just needs a l’il sprucin’ up, s’all. Water needs checkin’, wires need testin’, stuff like that. I’ll have someone come by ‘n check things out, if ya really wanna live here.”

Ellie hesitates, again. She looks from the shed to Joel. He’s looking away from her, to the house. Quiet and bottled up, like always. Sometimes, she likes to think she knows what’s going on in his head, but after everything at Salt Lake, she isn’t so sure. Maybe she was never all that great at reading him.

She hopes she’s reading him the right way now.

“I’ll think about it,” she says finally, smiling. “Who knows? I might like living in a mansion instead of a safehouse for once.”

Joel looks at her then, relief clear in his eyes, and smiles back, just a bit.

Just enough.

  
  


* * *

Ellie knows, instantly, that she doesn’t belong in Jackson anymore.

The settlement sits comfortably in the valley, situated against a backdrop of pine and oak. It glows warm yellow in the dark of the evening, alive as it’s always been, each building and home, every chimney and roof familiar. Through the trees in the forest that used to feel familiar, she stalls on tired feet and hesitates.

She’d done the same when she approached the farmhouse again.

Only she doesn’t have to hope that people will still be there; she knows Jackson won’t be -- could never be -- empty when she goes back like the farmhouse had been, but even still the thought of returning frightens her. Not as much as when the fear of the empty home that did, to her trepidation, come true, far, _far_ from it, but she can’t help but wonder if there’s even a place for her still.

She thinks of Tommy and the betrayal and vitriol in his voice. She thinks of Dina, turned away from her and sobbing softly. She thinks of JJ, weeping, afraid and confused by her episodes.

She thinks of Jesse, limp on the floor.

She thinks of Joel. 

Her stomach turns sickeningly.

She thinks of turning back.

The frigid air stings her burning skin, the cuts on her face and arms, and the aching hand that was once whole. Winter is just around the corner. It won’t be long till snow begins to fall again. If she were to turn back, she wouldn’t last the winter; she’s certain of it. She’s too frail, too broken.

Ellie finds herself leaning against the nearest tree. She takes a deep breath, but even that’s a struggle. With the breath, her mouth and throat grow dry quickly, yielding a rough, nauseous cough that causes her head to swim.

She shouldn’t turn back.

She can’t.

How can she, after everything?

She knows she won’t belong there like she used to. But a part of her -- rational and calm against the tumultuous fear within her -- knows she wouldn’t feel right anywhere else. Jackson had once felt like home, until it didn’t when Joel died. The farmhouse had once been home but it can’t be without her family there with her.

Would Jackson feel like home like it used to, even if she tried again?

(Does she even deserve a place to call home?)

Her heart aches for what used to be her life. She misses Dina. She misses JJ. She misses laughing. She misses being enveloped in warmth. She misses _belonging_.

_How could she leave?_

Thunder rumbles in the distance, unsettling her deeply. A storm is approaching; she can tell it’s going to be a rough one.

Against the wriggling of her insides, the building pressure in her head, and the scream of exhaustion in her legs, she goes down the hill, thinking of Dina and JJ.

* * *

Three-quarters of the way between the empty comfort of the trees and the massive eastern gate, they yell for her to stop where she is and identify herself. Immediately, she raises her arms; her voice fails her for a moment from its disuse but soon comes through, crackling in her throat.

“It’s Ellie! Ellie Williams!”

All goes quiet for a long, uncertain second before there’s fumbling and indistinct yells as the heavy gate is hastily pulled open.

She stumbles forward a short ways as a pair of patrolmen -- two older residents, a man and a woman, that Ellie could never properly hold onto the names of -- run over and approach her cautiously, rifles in hand.

“Holy _shit_ , it _is_ you,” the man says, balking at her scarred face, while the woman looks her over.

“You alright?” The woman, more concerned than shocked by her appearance, circles her, drawing closer. “You look worse for wear there, hun.”

“F --” Ellie clears her throat. “Fine.”

The woman gently takes her chin in her hand and tilts her head to look for signs of infection. Ellie avoids her eyes and winces sorely as she takes hold of her arm and lifts it to look at the dried blood stains on her side. “Are you sure? You don’t look --”

Suddenly, the man is dragging his companion away with alarmed eyes trained at her hand. Ellie flinches away, startled.

“Sh-She’s been _bit!_ ”

Her left hand tingles. Ellie looks to where gnarled skin sits on the edge of her hand, far from fresh now but prominent still.

 _The bite._ She’d forgotten about the _bite_.

The rifles come up. Ellie raises her hands instantly. 

“W-Wait, I -- I can explain --!”

“Stay where you are!” comes the man’s frightened yell. 

“Look -- please -- you don’t underst --”

“Get back, Ellie, don’t you make me --”

“ _That’s enough_.”

The three of them turn as a voice cuts through the commotion. Maria has already crossed the gate’s entrance toward them and is shouldering past the two guards.

“Maria, what --”

“Stand down,” she tells them, though her eyes are locked on Ellie, cold and searing all at once. Ellie feels what little fortitude within her shrink. 

The woman gapes as Maria takes another step toward her.

“Maria, stop, she’s been --”

Maria turns and snarls at them, “I said, _stand down_.” The two exchange uneasy glances before relenting. Ellie doesn’t move a muscle as stoic eyes turn on her once more. She can only stare back for a moment before darting her eyes away.

“Ellie,” Maria finally says, stern, like always. Her tone alone is so familiar, it fills Ellie with something she can’t name.

 _This is it,_ Ellie thinks, _She’s gonna turn you away._

“Maria,” she exhales, like she’d been holding her breath, her voice faltering, “I --”

She doesn’t get out anything more than that because Maria is yanking her into a tight hug. It’s odd. She’d never hugged her all that much before and had never seemed particularly keen on the concept altogether. It’s awfully uncharacteristic of her. Still, it’s warm and nice; Ellie’s eyes glaze with tears and she hugs back.

(She realizes she hadn’t been hugged in so long.)

“I thought you were --” Maria pulls away to get a better look at her, brows creased with concern, strong hands against her arms. “My _God_ , Ellie, you’re wasting away. Just what the hell happened to you out there?”

The pity in her voice is painful to hear.

Before she can respond, Maria seems to think better of asking that question and is ushering her toward the open gates. “Come on, we need to get you someplace warm. I’ll take you back to mine.”

“Wh-What -- but --”

“No ‘but’s. Come with me.”

Feeling smaller than usual, Ellie gives up all fight and follows, meekly avoiding the floored stares of the guards.

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Though Ellie keeps her head down, she can feel eyes on her. 

The path is familiar, almost horribly so. She envisions the shops and businesses, the refurbished stoplights and abandoned cars, and the _people_. It’s late evening, which means there’s bound to be people out socializing after the day’s work, and yet it’s deafeningly silent on the street.

And she knows it’s her appearance that caused it.

She’s not sure she’s ready to face anyone else today. She wonders, a tad desperately, what they must think of her -- judging from the shocked response from one of those guards, she’s already got the impression that maybe they were more uncertain of her fate than she’d expected they were -- but wills herself not to look. _You’ll find out_ , she tells herself. _You’ll know soon enough._

 _Unless you bail again, that is,_ chides a little voice.

_What then?_

And then: _Is Dina out here too?_

Her head begins to throb horribly. The pressure behind her eyes is unbearable. She squeezes them shut, and woozily loses her balance, stumbling.

There’s murmuring, angry, shocked, boots against gravel, shifting away, and suddenly Maria’s hands hold her up.

“Sorry,” she gasps, not looking at the people around her and not looking at Maria, “I’m sorry.”

But Maria merely keeps an arm across her shoulders and guides her the rest of the way.

* * *

The bath is scalding hot on her sensitive skin, but she steps in and submerges her body anyway. Maria goes to grab her...something; she hadn’t been listening all that closely.

For a while, she simply sits there and stews, mind blank and buzzing in her skull. She stares at where the water meets her bruised knees, strokes a thumb idly over the purpling skin and the deep red scrapes.

Her eyes and head don’t hurt any less than they had when she came down the hill. If anything, it’d all gotten worse; her ears are starting to suffer from the same aching pressure.

Her body’s in so much pain, and has been for so long that she isn’t sure what to do anymore.

She’s just beginning to tread the line between awake and unconscious when a sharp knock startles her, horribly.

In a flash, she sees Joel, in pain, bleeding, on the ground, feels hands holding her down roughly, knees pinning her. There’s blood in her nose and in her mouth, and she can’t look away and -- she _can’t_ \--

It’s as if the air is being pulled forcibly from her lungs. She holds her chest, squeezes her eyes shut, and tries to breathe.

“--llie? Ellie!” she hears faintly.

There are hands on her again, but they’re more gentle, holding her shoulders, drawing her attention. Maria looks incredibly alarmed. It makes her think of --

 _Breathe_.

Ellie gasps, remembers how to breathe. In and out. In and out. And she sits there for several moments, just breathing, with Maria watching her.

Eventually, Maria pulls her hands away, but looks no less worried.

“Do you --”

“I’m -- I’m fine,” she whispers, still shaking, “I-I-I’m fine, Maria, I promise.”

She looks far from convinced but she relents, “...Okay. I’ll be in the next room, alright? If you need me, just...say so.”

Ellie nods frantically and watches her go.

She spends a long while getting her breathing under better control and feeling like complete and utter shit, before she scrubs herself clean till the water turns murky and her fingers start to wrinkle.

When she finishes, she dries herself and dresses in clothes she hadn’t realized Maria had left for her -- soft pajama bottoms and a long-sleeve, both of which hang loosely from her body. She finds Maria in the dining room, with a bowl of soup and a steaming mug in front of the empty chair across from her.

She sits, and looks at the food and the tea nervously. When she looks at Maria, she’s already looking back, watching her. There’s a hardness in her eyes that tells Ellie she’s thinking.

“Um --”

“Eat now. We’ll talk later.”

It’s tough for her, eating. But under Maria’s stoic eyes, she manages to choke down several chunky spoonfuls before her stomach protests and she has to stop. She hardly touches the tea, save for a few shy sips.

Maria stays silent, observing her hawkishly. Ellie doesn’t say anything either, uneasy under her gaze. Instead, she fidgets with the spoon in her hand and blearily studies the dark tea in her mug, still warm and waiting.

Finally, Maria asks:

“You planning on leaving again?”

Deep brown, so dark it’s almost black. She thinks of warmth, of Dina, lying in bed with her and smiling like she’s everything to her, of dark pools so deep and full of love. Then -- desperation, pleading, all hope draining. Those eyes pull shut, wet with tears, and turn away from her.

“No,” Ellie says, quietly, “I’m done.”

“And do you mean it this time? Because I seem to recall you saying you were done when you came back from Seattle.” Maria’s face doesn’t shift, but her voice is free of any anger or heat.

Ellie takes a breath, rubs a hand over her tired eyes. “I know. But there’s nothing for me out there. I’m not leaving. Not again.”

“I certainly hope not.” Maria leans back in her chair, relaxing her shoulders. “You can stay here for as long as you need. I know it won’t be easy, getting reaccustomed.”

“Yeah.” Ellie worries her lip, thinking of the quiet residents. “It -- It really won’t.”

Maria must sense her thoughts because she says, “You can’t blame them for staring. You were gone so long, no one thought you were even coming back. Lot of ‘em thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, well...I came pretty close. A couple times,” she says honestly, cradling her hand.

“I thought as much.”

“I --” Ellie hesitates. “I’m sorry.”

Maria shrugs and sips her tea. “I’m not the one you owe an apology to.”

That rattles Ellie. Even the thought of seeing Dina again unnerves her. “Right.” A long, measured breath. Ellie puts her hands on the table to push herself up. “I-I should probably --”

“Absolutely not.” Maria is already standing and ushering her out of her seat and into the next room.

“Wh -- Maria --”

“First, you’re going to rest. You’ll need to get looked at and then treated, if need be.” She directs her toward the guest room at the end of the hall. It’s been cleaned very quickly, with fresh sheets laid out on the bed and Ellie’s pack nestled nearby on the floor.

Ellie wishes she can say she put up a fight but she’s bone-tired, weak, and hurting all over, so Maria gets her into bed pretty easily.

“No,” Ellie murmurs, exhaustion taking her finally and surprisingly quickly in the soft warmth of the bed, “no, I need to --”

“You just rest now, Ellie. I’ll have a doctor come in and take a look at you.” 

Her body betrays her and obeys Maria. Slowly, in several heavy blinks, Ellie falls asleep and only vaguely feels the hand smoothing over her forehead.

* * *

In reality, Ellie wakes several times over a very long period of time. There are small blips in consciousness, many of which feature Maria sitting her up to get her to eat and drink whatever she can get down, and a few where she has to stand for whatever reason -- but to Ellie’s recollection, she’s been out cold the entire time.

Maria informs her of a few things when she’s finally lucid: one, she’s been in bed for just over three days; two, Dr. Singh had come round and checked on her the morning after she’d arrived; and three, according to Dr. Singh, she's got no internal injuries, nothing broken or too severe, but she’s dehydrated and undernourished.

“Both mild cases, thank God, but we’re gonna have to get you eating again,” Maria says from the stove, like it’s _easy_ , after Ellie has settled at the table. Before Ellie can say anything, Maria adds sternly, “As long as you’re livin’ here, you’ll eat, Ellie. No ‘buts’ about it.”

It’s late in the afternoon. This is the second time today Maria has come home to check on her, and the first where Ellie has been fully awake.

The thought of eating again doesn’t sound very appealing; in fact, it makes her feel a little sick, but Ellie knows, even without asking or being told, that she’s worryingly underweight and this, coupled with the dehydration, is why she can’t walk, think, or breath right. So instead of saying anything, she simply nods meekly.

The food Maria puts in front of her smells good, so Ellie eats. She eats as much as she can, which is only about seven bites. But it’s a slight improvement from last time, so Maria lets her off after convincing her to finish her glass of water and helps her get back to bed.

* * *

She sleeps for maybe thirty minutes more before she wakes again to her stomach turning, blood scarring her eyesight, and screams in her ears. Her heart slams in her chest, her skin sweaty and clammy, and she hisses at the marks she’s clawing into her own biceps. Her lungs eject air from her body entirely, and when she tries to take deeper breaths, her stomach takes advantage and lurches.

She forces herself up, stumbles toward the bathroom and collapses over the toilet, just as the contents of her stomach begin to force their way out.

It seems to last forever, her retching and dumping all her hard work into the toilet, but eventually she spits the last of it into the water, flushes it down, and turns to sit heavily on the floor beside it.

This happens far too frequently for her to not be used to it by now. The prior six months had been such a blur, she wonders how she’d ever survived. She’d eaten all she could muster when out on the road to Santa Barbara and it was far more than she was able to before or after; it was her stupid resolve, her adamance toward hunting Abby down once and for all that made her hungry again. She’d wanted to keep up her strength for when it would finally happen.

Turns out she didn’t need all that strength in the first place.

After she’d left the coast, she didn’t know what to do. The months went by at a snail’s pace, in an endless cycle of limping across state lines back to Jackson and stopping maybe once or twice a day to chew on what little she could find to sate herself. Hunting hadn’t been easy once the remains of her rations were gone; the fight in her had all but left, replaced by an empty cavern of pain. 

She went for small game; it was all she could manage. It was enough to keep her alive. But never enough to sustain her, keep her strong.

Never enough and yet too much, all at once.

The dreams would never stop either. There were new ones, different from before, of the Rattlers’ overwhelming her and putting her on those pillars; of Abby and that boy, dead already; of Joel, alive in Santa Barbara somehow, pulling her away from Abby like he’d done with David. They all hurt, made her scream herself awake and writhing, her blood and muscles squirming beneath her skin.

She should’ve fucking died out there.

Her mouth tastes vile. Head swimming and stomach in knots, she hugs her knees and attempts to slow her breathing but when she looks around, the walls are caving in around her, space shrinking exponentially.

Air. She needs fresh air.

It’s not a good idea. But against her better judgement, she dons a thick jacket and a pair of galoshes from the hallway closet and steps out. The storm has long since blown over but a light, chilly rain has taken its place. She zips the jacket up, pulls the hoodie over her head, and draws it tight around her face.

Thankfully, the weather has shooed most residents inside.

Ellie shoves her hands in her pockets and trudges down the street.

She thinks of visiting Joel’s grave. It’d be the first time in a very long while. Something -- like a voice at the back of her skull -- sneers at her and tells her to keep away. Calls her a joke. A coward. A waste. It sounds a lot like Tommy.

She grimaces.

Maria hasn’t once spoken of Tommy. Ellie wonders if it was on purpose, or if she’d just forgotten in the midst of nursing her back to health. Maybe Maria’s put more distance between them. Maybe he’s away. Ellie isn’t sure what he does these days to keep himself busy, but she knows he’d be banging on Maria’s door if he were to find out she’s staying -- hiding? laid up? -- at Maria’s without coming to see him first.

Just as the thought makes her grip at the fabric of her jacket, a lone figure draws her attention as she comes upon the marketplace. 

They streak across the street with the back of their bomber pulled haphazardly over their head and stomps up the steps of the daycare. They take a moment to shake the water from their boots, mumbling something.

Ellie nearly attempts to duck out of sight, but the mumbling clears into sharp curses and it makes her pause.

The figure shrugs the makeshift hood off their head and hurries into the building, a dark, wavy ponytail whipping after them.

Ellie stops. Doesn’t breathe.

A moment later, they come back out, arms full with a giggling bundle wrapped in a little yellow slicker. The figure chuckles and murmurs to the bundle which wriggles playfully.

Ellie would fall to her knees then and there if her legs weren’t locked in place.

_Dina._

In the dim lamp light, Ellie can see the exhaustion on Dina’s face, cut through by a deeply loving smile. She pulls JJ closer and nuzzles her nose to his. A sight Ellie’s seen so many times before and experienced for herself -- a mother loving her child. The sheer picture of happiness. 

A deep pain fills her chest.

Deep beneath all her fears, Ellie wants nothing more than to go to her and apologize and _be with_ her and JJ again, and never, _ever_ leave again. It’s all she’s wanted for the past six months. But a more sensible part of her tells her it’s not possible, not after she’d put them through.

 _You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve_ them _._

Ellie imagines it briefly -- actually walking up and disrupting the peace Dina had to make with coming back to Jackson and starting all over. The image of Dina’s form comes to her, turned away from her with her shoulders hunched, shaking ever so slightly with silent sobs. Hurt. Disappointed. _Betrayed_. Unable and unwilling to even look at her as she left.

Dina’s face hadn’t been the last Ellie had seen of her, but she’d tried to imagine far too many times what emotions might’ve warred on her face.

She imagines now what she might see if Dina sees her again.

No.

 _Fuck_.

The thought fucks her up. What was she thinking? Who is she kidding?

She’d fucked things up so many times. Left Dina behind to worry over her, left her deathly afraid of whether Ellie was alive or dead in some alley, to some Scar or Wolf. Left her and JJ that final time despite every plea to stay.

She doesn’t deserve another chance.

She’ll just fuck it up all over again.

A quiet voice comes back to her too, soft and sad.

_I’m not gonna do this again._

Ellie turns tail and runs.

* * *

“I know what you’re thinking,” Maria says rather sternly from the sink, after supper later. 

Well. _Her_ supper is finished. Ellie still has a long way to go, but she sits slumped in her chair with her arms crossed, staring somberly at the tepid chicken and peas and mash while her stomach squirms unpleasantly.

“What am I thinking,” Ellie asks, quiet.

“You’re thinking of going to see Dina.” It’s as if she’s been preparing herself for this talk or holding back this whole time, or both.

Ellie draws her arms tighter over her chest. She knows Maria’s watching her--she’s _always_ fucking watching her -- so she turns her eyes downward and glares down at the leg of the table. 

“Maybe at one point,” she mutters. “But I’m not. Not now, at least.”

Maria doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, surprised, “...You’re not?”

Ellie sighs forcefully. “No.” 

Another beat. 

“You went out. Didn’t you?”

A shrug. “I -- I just wanted some air.” Maria comes to sit across from her, face unreadable. Ellie glowers at nothing, biting hard at her lip. “She didn’t see me. She was picking up JJ from daycare. And she looked so happy, I --” She exhales sharply. “I hurt her. As much as I wanted to go and apologize, I…” She trails off, squeezing her eyes shut.

For the first time since coming back to Jackson, there’s heat in her veins, scalding in her throat, wrinkling her brows. She deserves every bit of the punishment that is living without Dina and JJ and far, far worse, but acknowledging that doesn’t make it hurt any less. She’s so fucking stupid. She’s so fucking _selfish_.

She sighs through gritted teeth and lets her anger drain from her. She rubs her eyes.

“She’s probably got a whole new life now. She doesn’t need me coming in and ruining everything all over again. Like she’d even want to see me.”

Maria sighs from across the table.

“Look, Ellie, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. You leaving on that suicide mission was the stupidest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen anyone do, and you know I _used to_ be married to.” There it is. Ellie winces but doesn’t say anything. She can take it. She deserves this. “You chose to leave that poor girl in that house alone with a baby you vowed to raise _with_ her.”

A tender memory flits through, of Dina’s steel grip as Ellie held her through JJ’s birth and the hours spent afterward holding one another, with their son between them, able to take their eyes off of him. Her chest feels more and more hollow, yearning for them.

She lowers her head and puts a hand to her forehead.

“But,” Maria continues, “if you regret what you did, and you _are_ staying in Jackson like you say you are, I’m sure you two can work it out.”

Dina at the daycare, tired-eyed but happy. Dina in the kitchen, turned away from her.

_I’m not gonna do this again._

Ellie can only shake her head roughly. “I -- she -- sh-she’d never --”

Maria presses, carefully. “You don’t think it’s possible for her to forgive you?”

There's fire in her throat again. Ellie seethes. “I don’t think I deserve to be fucking forgiven. I never should’ve left the farm. I never should’ve left Jackson. It’s all my fault that -- that --” She grips a fistful of hair as tears burn in her eyes. “Why couldn’t I have just -- just _listened?_ Why couldn’t I just let things go? I just --”

Everything, every violent thought and threat against herself, every spark of anger gnawing at her insides, every shitty mistake stampedes through her head and threatens to spill from her mouth. It’s everything she’d had to keep inside from Santa Barbara to Jackson. She knew every cost when she left both times, she knew people would get hurt or killed, she knew leaving would be the worst choice she would ever make for her and everyone involved, and yet -- and _yet_ , she went through with it anyway. 

She got Jesse killed. She got Dina hurt. She got Tommy impaired. She killed so many people and she just kept killing and killing and _killing_. 

Until she couldn’t kill anymore. 

Until she was gone completely.

She swallows the lump forming in her throat. Maria has already stood up and gone to put her hand on Ellie’s back. Ellie can’t bear to look at her as the troublingly kind touch causes her tears to flood over.

“I just wanna be _better_ ,” she grits.

Maria doesn’t say anything, just lets Ellie sit and cry in silence for just a moment.

“You want my advice?”

It takes Ellie a moment to register the words; when she finally does, she wipes her cheek with her sleeve, sniffing, and slowly looks up at her. “...I can’t get anyone else’s.”

“Well,” she begins, “For starters, I can fix you up with Imelda -- you know Imelda?” 

Ellie slowly nods; she does, but vaguely. She recalls Jesse visiting her a lot when they were younger. Whether it was by his choice, or his parents’, she never found out, but it was something she was never fond of. She would never tell him, but she’d never liked the idea of some stranger getting into her head.

Her hackles raise.

“I’ll talk to her, set you up for something weekly --”

“Maria, _no_ , c’mon --”

“Ellie, you _need_ to talk to someone.”

“I-It doesn’t work for me!” Ellie exclaims, gripping her numb hand -- a nervous habit of hers now. “I -- I’ve tried, Maria. It just makes things _worse_.”

Maria’s eyes are gentle. “It has to get worse before it gets better.” 

Ellie’s mouth screws shut. That _fucking_ saying. She’s starting to think it isn’t true at all.

“Can’t I just talk to _you?_ ” she tries weakly, but the question immediately feels inappropriate. Maria’s already doing so much for her.

“Imelda can help you better than I can here. Please, Ellie. Do it for me.” 

Ellie hates the voice Maria’s using on her. It’s not her usual authoritative tone, but something softer, more quiet and vulnerable, looking at her the way she does when Ellie’s being difficult. Somehow it makes her feel younger than the former does.

She wipes another stray tear from her cheek.

“Just...let me think about it, okay? I-It’s not a ‘no,’ but...” It’s half-hearted but Maria scans her face and mercifully relents.

“Alright. I’ll give you some time and then...well, we’ll go from there,” she says. “Now, once you’ve got some of your strength back and you’re not so sore, I want you to go to work. It’ll do you some good, get you back into shape. We can talk about it later, but I doubt you wanna be on rotations again.”

That sends a shudder through Ellie. “No, thanks.” Then, for a moment, she thumbs at a bandage on her forearm, eyeing her aunt-of-sorts, before asking, “Why are you helping me, Maria? I-I don’t deserve this...I left you too.”

Maria’s quiet for a long time. Ellie thinks she’s not going to answer until, one shoulder raises in an aloof shrug. 

“Because you’re the only family I’ve got left,” comes her quiet response; it makes Ellie duck her head down and stare pointedly at her lap.

They’d never said something like that to one another before. Being a family -- her and Joel and Maria and Tommy. They knew it, of course, in some way or another, but never said it.

A strange silence passes over them -- not awkward or uncomfortable, just...strange. More natural than anything. Ellie sips her tea, till it’s half full.

“She’s going to find out, y’know.”

Her stomach squirms. There goes that. 

Ellie places her mug down. “...I know.”

“You know bad gas travels fast in a town like this.”

“I _know_.”

“And it’s already been a few days and our friends at the gates aren’t exactly the quiet type.” Maria eyes her mangled hand. “And that bite of yours doesn’t much help.”

“I kn--” Ellie stops, as the guards’ scared faces flash in her head, before slapping a hand to her forehead. “Fuck. _Fuck_."

“Alright, alright, none of that,” Maria placates, squeezing her shoulder. “We can just...make something up to tell people if they ask. Tell them they were seeing things maybe. But first, we need to hide it. And we sure as hell are not doing what you did last time.”

Ellie stares at the bite. The angry indents had healed over completely months prior but they’re still surrounded by cysts, fewer than last time. Maria winces when she sees her prod at one. (It should hurt, she thinks. But it doesn’t.)

Then she looks to her other arm and the healed chemical burn marked over with twisting fern leaves, then to Maria, who's watching her again.

“Okay,” she says, thumbing at the burn, “W-We can figure something out.”

Maria smiles. “Yeah?”

Ellie nods. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Maria puts a hand on her shoulder. “You know, I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. Jackson is a place for new beginnings.” Her smile is kind, soft on her aging face. “Even for you.”

Ellie exhales slowly, like steam from a locomotive, and smiles back at her. Whether she truly believes it, she isn’t sure, but it feels nice to have someone in her corner. “Thank you, Maria.”

“And stop that swearing in my house.”

“Y-Yes, ma’am.”


	2. broke your heart like someone did to mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm done. It's over. I'm over it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Save Your Tears" by The Weeknd. 
> 
> Content warning for implied infant death. DON'T WORRY, it's in reference to a _nightmare,_ and it's only described in a small vague detail, but it's there nonetheless.

She knows they all know. 

She can see it in their eyes. The overwhelming pity. The careful sympathy. They don’t say a word but she feels them watching when she comes through the gate. Robin and Min share it too, when she shows up at their doorstep, but they at least have the decency to keep their eyes focused somewhere else.

She’s mortified, fallen completely from whatever grace they all expect her to uphold, like Icarus from the sun. She doesn’t need to say anything to be welcomed in wholeheartedly and it stings to realize that they don’t need to ask to know.

 _Of course_ , they all know. It’s not terribly hard to fill in the blanks. It never is.

Joel had been killed, and _something_ had to be done.

Four of Jackson’s best had gone missing just like that, and only three had come back, broken and scarred.

The two of them had left Jackson together, and only one of them returned with their baby held tight in her arms.

She had fallen in love with the _most dangerous person in Jackson_ , and she had paid dearly for it.

It’s so fucking obvious, it hurts.

So she shuts herself away, in Jesse’s old room, for days and days, weeks and weeks, on end. Robin takes a break from work to move her stuff from her house to theirs. It takes a couple days and he does it alone. Min takes care of JJ, plays with him, feeds him, and rocks him to sleep in Dina’s stead. 

They’re careful, reluctant. They walk around her and give her space. They leave her food outside the door and when JJ cries for her, they knock and gently give him to her. She doesn’t know if she appreciates it or loathes it. Either way, it feels awful. It’s _lonely_ , feeling this way and not being able to communicate it, but her skin itches horridly when they ask if she slept well, or if she ate, or if she’d like to hold JJ.

It _hurts_ , even with JJ. He’ll grin and babble and reach for her, paw at her face, and she’ll smile back and kiss him, but she’s never really all there for him.

A haze has settled around Dina, her head foggy and leaden, and the days pass as though they’re only a few hours long. She drifts further and further away and though she wants to cling to the present, her arms remain dead at her sides. Her chest feels hollow, empty like the farmhouse, void of the happiness, the love she had for life, _her_ life. Often in the dark she stares up at the ceiling, wondering where it all went. Wondering why she was made to suffer like this. Why it always ends with her losing someone.

It’d been her father first. He had left to find food for the family and never came home. Days had passed before they found out what had happened to him; a Raven had shot him for crossing paths with them and left his body in an alley, stripped of every possession.

Her mother came next. She’d been bitten while trying to protect them from a Runner. Talia had held Dina and didn’t let her look when their mother’s veins began to turn black; Dina was pushed out of the room when their mother gave a stern look to Talia. The gunshot never truly left her.

Then it was Talia. They were far from New Mexico at that point and headed toward Jackson when they were jumped by three men. They demanded their food and water. Talia made a wrong move, reached for her gun instead, and in a blink, was gone. A young -- _too young_ \-- Dina gave them everything they wanted and they left. She cried over her sister’s body for hours.

Then, Jesse. She didn’t hear the shot that did it, but when she came to later, nose broken and face bloody, and the arrow was removed from her shoulder, she’d stood staring at his lifeless, dead-eyed face and wishing he’d get back up. Wishing she’d told him.

And now…

She’s not dead. 

Dina has to tell herself that when she lies awake, but she knows it doesn’t make any difference. She’s _gone_ , either way. And she may never know what’s happening -- or has happened -- to her out there.

Most days she makes herself nauseous thinking about all the ways she might have already died. The thoughts invade her sleep. In her nightmares she sees Abby killing Ellie as swiftly as she _could_ have at the theater, the way she _must_ have with Jesse. There’s no fight. Ellie doesn’t even get to try. She sees Maria turning up with the last of Ellie’s possessions -- a revolver, a journal, and a broken watch, twice orphaned. She sees Ellie bleeding out and dying just inches from the gate. 

She loses sleep. She cries so much some nights, she has to move JJ into his grandparents’ room to keep from waking him.

She’s not dead. She’s _not_ dead.

She _can’t be dead._

_But wouldn’t it be better if she didn’t come back?_

It’s a bitter thought that startles her every time. As though she’s been hoping Ellie does die out there or just...doesn’t return. She weeps every time, curling up so tight, her limbs end up sore the next day. It’s not _true_ , it’s just not; she wants her back and alive and well and here in bed with her. 

_She wants Ellie._

She wants the safety and the love and the warmth Ellie gave so readily.

She wants to _rid herself_ of Ellie, wholly and completely, to stop waiting for someone who left her in the first place, but aches for her at the same time.

Eventually, Robin and Min try to talk to her about it. They help her up and sit her down and ask what they can do to make things easier for her, help her through this. She’s reduced to tears in ten seconds flat and they hold her through it. They let her talk.

They tell her they love her and that whatever she plans to do, they’ll support her.

They do so much for her and offer more and more.

Slowly, she’s able to piece herself back together. She finds the strength to rise, shower, eat, smile again. She finds it in her to raise JJ high in the air and play like they used to, loud and happy. 

She runs and exercises in the morning to clear her head, and works till the evening to keep herself busy, sticking to small jobs, going where people need her, and settling somewhere for a while. Everyone is careful too, at first, but gradually warm and Jackson begins to resemble the home that it once was. She reconnects with old friends, goes out for drinks at the diner, attends bonfires and parties and dances, and talks and laughs with people.

And they forget about Ellie.

Dina doesn’t forget the way she’d like to. The haze stays, hovering over her, but she’s able to press on. For JJ. For Robin and Min.

She has to remind herself she’s doing it for herself as well.

* * *

There’s been chatter in town, a murmur passing from person to person through the streets for about a week now. It’s not an unusual thing; people in Jackson are always talking about _something._ It comes with the territory of being a small-ish, close-knit town. Just last week, it was Lucy getting caught with Kofi in the park at night, behind the big oak tree. The week before _that_ , it was tweens sneaking booze from the Tipsy Bison, getting caught, and then having to sweep the streets while hungover as punishment.

But it’s different this time, somewhat. It seems to be less gossip and more tense whispering. Like something happened that has everyone unsettled.

Dina finds herself far too busy to stop and listen, or even care to. Between her long shifts at the electronic shop, care for JJ, and helping out around the Jeons’ place, she isn’t quite as engaged with gossip these days as she was when she was younger.

But she’ll sometimes catch scraps of it when she’s out at the market anyway.

“You seen anything yet?” someone will ask.

“No,” someone else will answer, “and Maria’s got her lips sealed about it.”

“You really believe it?”

“Brock said he swears up and down, there was a bite! And Maria acted like it was nothing, even came past the gate herself. _Unarmed_.”

“I dunno if I believe that old coot. Musta been seein’ things.”

“Milly says she saw it too!”

A naysayer will grouse, “Yeah, well, this all seems pretty farfetched to me. I ain’t seen nothin’, so as far as I’m concerned, those two are playin’ pranks on all of us.”

And usually, by this point in the conversation, they seem to notice her there. She hears them whisper their _shit’s_ and _fuck’s_ as they scurry away. It’s the same at the electronic shop as well; Dane and Imani have been acting strange since the week started, shutting up and shushing one another immediately when she walks in for her shift or pulls her headphones off for a break.

Dina acts like she doesn’t notice. It’s confounding, sure, but ultimately, based on what she’s heard, she decides she doesn’t like it.

She’s gotten fairly good at dodging the ever-popular talk of patrols. It’d been something of an obsession when she’d started work again -- listening to the buzz, the reports of Infected in which area, the stragglers found on which routes -- but now, despite the nagging, anxious desire to just know _what’s going on_ , she can’t stand it.

The looks must be of pity, somehow. She’d thrived as a patrolman.

Part of her misses it -- the trails, the rush of adrenaline, the swell in her chest at the thought of keeping her home safe. Another part of her takes her back to Seattle, to Abby, to...

It’s rare that shoves anything down so as to not process it, revisit it, but Seattle is a special case. She’s earned it, she thinks, to _not_ think of Seattle and the misfortune it brought.

She tells herself not to worry about it. So she doesn’t.

Until one night, as she’s tiptoeing out of the bedroom after tucking JJ in and thinking back -- very briefly and sorely, as she tends to when she’s able to put the tuckered boy to bed herself -- to that windy night at the farmhouse, where the pieces rearrange in her head and clamp together like a vice.

She stops moving altogether.

A bite. The gate. The looks. Maria.

No, no, no.

For a moment, she just stands there at the top of the stairs, fists shaking, clenching and unclenching at her sides, till the heat prickling at her nape becomes too much, and suddenly, she’s downstairs, in the dining room, downing her second glass of whiskey. 

Ellie’s back.

Ellie is _back_.

A shuddering breath. Another heavy swig. 

Then, after several more, Dina thinks that it _can’t_ be true.

It can’t. It has to just be rumors. It has to be.

But it all makes sense. Everyone walking on eggshells like they did when she’d first trudged back into town. Maria’s mysterious disappearances that had a few people dipping their heads into shops in search of her. The talk of a bite on some straggler that Maria was somehow involved with.

She can only fool herself for so long.

So.

Ellie is back.

Dina feels herself suck in air.

Ellie is _alive_.

The relief that washes over her wars with the roiling fear in her gut. Before, she had never been the type to overthink -- not as much as Ellie or Talia would -- but now she supposes that it’s a habit she’s inherited from the both of them. Her head feels ill-suited for it but nevertheless, the questions, new and old, begin to flood once more, in rapid succession.

How long has she been back? How hadn’t she known? Why did it take her so long to figure it out?

(All that shoving-it-down shit that she’s been doing for the past few months is making her feel like a fucking idiot right now.)

Shouldn’t someone have _told her_ by now? 

...Shouldn’t Ellie have come looking for her by now? Why hasn’t she? How is she? Is she alright?

Is she hurt?

Dina thinks of the theatre -- and finds herself, despite everything she’s worked to keep under control, sick with worry. Like she’s sitting in the radio room again, nauseous and anxious, thinking of every single way Ellie could’ve gotten hurt, or worse.

She wants to see her. Wants to take her face in her hands and make sure for herself that she’s _real_ , actually _there_. She wants to feel her warmth again, wants Ellie’s arms around her.

Suddenly, she’s feeling everything at once -- her grief, her fear, her excitement, her _love_ , all running rampant within, stumbling over one another for a chance to cling desperately to the thought of a broad-shouldered figure with pale and freckled skin, green eyes alight with adoration, and a shy, goofy grin. 

Until it’s less of a thought and more of a ghost, and Dina covers her wet eyes with a clumsy, shaking hand.

_That’s up to you._

Those cruel words. Those dim eyes, bereft of any light. The slam of the screen door.

Dina’s jaw draws tight. She becomes increasingly aware of the boy slumbering upstairs, and of the house that she loved and dreamt of for years sitting empty, devoid of the happiness that once lived there. 

No.

The hand drags down her face to glare hard at the space before her, as if it were Ellie there.

“ _I’m done,”_ she whispers into her trembling fist, “It’s _over_. I’m _over it_.”

A mantra she’s had to repeat to herself over and over, when her head filled to the brim with thoughts of Ellie. She mutters it over and over till it no longer stings to think of that face and say those words at the same time.

Whether it’s true or not, she tells herself it has to be.

* * *

The routine of eating three whole meals a day and sleeping all the way through the night is a very rough one to get used to. Ellie thinks that she could grow accustomed to some semblance of it, but at the moment, her stubborn body continues to resist.

Maria cooks for her each time and watches her eat what she can, which isn’t much, practically the slimmest fraction of the entire meal on the plate. Ellie forces herself sometimes to chew an extra few bites than what she’s able but her throat locks up and she has to hold a hand to her mouth to keep everything in; she can’t always do it. Maria carefully helps her to the bathroom when she’s able.

Ellie is mortified and embarrassed when on Wednesday, Maria places a bucket near her chair.

Maria is curt about it, doesn’t coddle her -- at least not too much -- when Ellie sulks about it, but she supposes, in a way, she appreciates it. There isn’t too much she feels she deserves right now.

(It comes in handy, once or twice.)

She spends the better part of the week holed up in the guest room, actually attempting to sleep, but to no avail. Despite being knocked out for nearly all of her first few days back, the fatigue seems to have waned and left her completely. Oftentimes, she just lies there instead, thinking all too much and staring hazily at the ceiling. 

The hours will tick by just like this. When she gets up to use the restroom -- which, weirdly, she's been doing a lot more often now -- or eat with Maria on her breaks, her head is heavy and aching.

For once, she _wants_ to sleep. For once, she recognizes she _needs_ to sleep. To get better, to start on fixing her shitty life, and _maybe_ , just to miss the agonizing hours of stiff pain and the feeling of a recovering stomach. But like at the farmhouse and the trip to Seattle, it doesn’t come to her as easily as it used to.

And when she does manage to doze off, it’s often accompanied by nightmares. They’re not just of Joel. Sometimes, she dreams of Nora below her, bloody and broken. Sometimes, she’s in a dark, murky forest, and a sharp, high whistle sends her into a panic.

Sometimes, she’s in the water again, except Abby’s on top of her and forcing her under.

Sometimes, she sees Jesse again, a black void pooling around him from the hole in his face.

Sometimes, she’s back at the farm, in the field, standing out by the gate, hand tingling. It’s just as she remembers; but something’s wrong, very, _very_ wrong. When she goes and steps inside her home, everything’s still there, but blood paints the floor, and a pair of bodies, large and small, lie lifeless in the kitchen.

Each time, she bursts awake in a cold sweat, breathless and crying out, and she has to force herself back to the present, to reality, writhing on the bed and cradling her head. It makes her all too aware of why, at one point, she’d absolutely hated sleeping. Hell, she _still_ hates sleeping; everything she bottles up while she’s conscious runs rampant when she’s asleep.

Maria doesn’t mention hearing her cries, but, of course, eyes her when she rises from the room, baggy-eyed and dragging her feet. She doesn’t nag about seeing Imelda, like Ellie expects, but she feels it anyway. 

* * *

Despite her stomach’s reluctance of food, little by little, Ellie drinks more water.

By Sunday, Ellie is able to drink an entire glass of water at each meal. It’s a tiny victory but it feels really good, strangely. She pretends not to see the shimmer in Maria’s eyes when she sees the empty glass for the first time and attempts to smother her smile; it feels odd to want to smile so wide.

* * *

It’s on the third week that Ellie finally decides to go out again. 

The thoughts rattling around in her head had already been driving her up the wall, but it’s a particularly cutting nightmare of Joel that forces her up and out of the bedroom. It’s very early in the morning; Maria has only just woken up and made breakfast, and is evidently surprised when Ellie shuffles into the dining room.

Ellie fidgets with her hands, shaking slightly, looking down. Her left hand is bandaged tightly from the careful burning of her bite mark from the previous week. It hurts still when she fidgets, but it’s the most she’s felt in her hand since her fingers healed.

The absence of her ring and pinkie fingers is more noticeable than ever to her now. 

“Um,” she starts, worrying her lip, “I-I wanna go for a walk. Is th-that okay?”

Maria gives her a look, like it’s a strange thing to ask, and thinks about it. “Well...there aren’t many people out right now.” She scratches her head, hair tousled slightly still. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. If you really want to.” She looks a touch worried. “Are you --”

“I-I’m fine, really, I just need to -- to clear my head, is all.” 

For a long, uncomfortable moment, Maria examines her, searching and thinking. 

“Alright,” she says gently, _finally_ , hands around her mug of coffee. “Be careful.”

She nods. “Yeah.”

“Come right back if anyone gives you trouble.”

“Yep. Yeah.”

Ellie is already out of the room to look for clothes.

“Make sure you bundle up,” Maria calls down the hall, before adding, “And take some mittens. It’s nippy out there.”

* * *

‘Nippy’ is an unfortunate understatement.

It’s fucking _frigid_ at this hour. The air immediately bites at the sweat on her forehead and makes her hand feel more raw than usual, even under the bandages. Winter’s creeping closer and closer. It won’t be long till the first snow comes down and the temperature plummets.

It’s still dim out. The sun is just barely peeking over the horizon, painting a corner of the sky pinkish orange, and it’s very quiet. True to Maria’s word, there’s hardly anyone out. It’s around dawn, which means people -- workers, everyone able-bodied and old enough -- will either just be getting up or would be soon.

The only people she does happen to see on Maria’s street are the sanitation crew, tending to the trash, and the patrolmen on morning watch, departing for the gates to relieve the night watch of duty.

Ellie skittishly averts them by cutting into an alleyway to the next street over.

For a while, she meanders through the empty residential streets at a frantic pace, looking at every house, fence, light post, and car, examining the cracks in the pavement and the grass peeking out of them, and feeling the cold on her cheeks. Slowly, gradually, she feels her breathe even, her legs slow, and the tension in her shoulders leave --

Until her feet take her to an achingly familiar street.

She stops at the sign at the corner with a hitch.

A moment passes where her nightmares flash back to her and there’s the barest trace of hesitation, before she finds herself trudging unsteadily down the street, eyes latching onto the house on the corner.

It’s exactly how she remembers. It’s as big and gray and intimidating as it was when she saw it for the first time.

The mailbox still has his name on it; part of her is relieved that the house hasn’t been reassigned yet, and another part spares a moment to wonder briefly how that is, before supposing that it’s not important. So long as it’s still here. One of the last pieces of him, with all the memories inside.

She looks on from the bottom of the steps.

Her legs ache to bend, lift up, take her to the door like they’ve done countless times before, and take her inside, but she stays rooted to the ground, trembling.

She remembers standing and staring like this right after he died. As if she was waiting for him to open the door and be there in his tan jacket and stupid flannel and sternly tell her to come in, get the hell out of the cold. 

He’d never appeared. He still won’t. Of course not. 

She’s all too aware of where he really is.

Ellie swallows and slowly, numbly, turns into the street behind her, till she’s in the cemetery and staring down at Joel’s gravestone. Unlike the house, which had long since been free of gifts once everyone was able to move on, the stone has some lilies resting at its base. Someone must’ve been round to visit him, same as her. 

Not too far away is Jesse’s grave; she’d never been able to look at it for too long without grimacing and tearing up. Now is no exception.

She crouches down and sits on the cold dirt, already etching the lines of Joel’s name with her eyes.

Ellie clears her throat, and wills the tears away. “Hey. Um. I’m back.” She rests her chin on her knee, arms looped around her leg, hands fiddling. “I’m, uh, staying at Maria’s. She’s been awful nice about getting me patched up again, you really wouldn’t believe it.”

She looks down. Her fingers are an angry reddish pink in the cold.

“I couldn’t do it,” she whispers. “I know it’s what you would’ve done, if it were me or Tommy. But -- I --” Her throat seizes. She can almost hear Abby’s struggling breaths, see the raw fear in her eyes. “I just -- _couldn’t_.”

Ellie swallows and takes a heavy breath. Rubs the back of her neck. “I, um. She -- Maria wants me to go to therapy, like Jesse used to. I told her I’d think about it, but...I-I don’t think it’ll help. I just can’t see it happening for me. I’m too...I mean, _you_ hardly ever talked to anybody about your shit and you seemed fine.” Then she snorts. “Not that your example was anything to go off of.”

It feels shitty, mouthing off to him even after he’s gone. She blinks back more tears.

“...I’m sorry,” she says. “I just wish things weren’t so fucked up. Wish _I_ wasn’t so fucked up.”

She shrugs. “Took a fucking while but I can kind of understand now, why you did what you did, but --” A harsh chuckle shakes her shoulders. “Fat lot of good saving me did. If only you could see me now. I’m fuckin’ skin and bones and I’m better off dead --”

“I fucking _knew_ it.”

Ellie springs to her feet and whirls around toward the source of the new voice.

“ _D-Dina_ ,” she breathes.

Dina stands not five feet away from her, stoic and still, face guarded. She’s panting lightly, and dressed in running attire, her hair pulled back into a bun like she used to. When Ellie turns to her, she startles visibly, and her eyes scan Ellie up and down, cautious and -- revolted? disturbed? -- like she’s not completely sure she’s seeing right.

Now up close, Ellie doesn’t know how Dina could’ve looked more beautiful but she _does_. It’s been nearly six fucking months since she’d seen that face, that strong nose, those thick brows, and the thought sends tidal waves of regret crashing through her. How many nights had she spent lying awake thinking of her, of turning back once and for all? How many times had she sketched her face so she’d never forget it? How did she go so _long_ without waking up to the sight of her every morning?

_How could you leave?_

It takes everything within her not to _fucking_ move, _go_ to her, and wrap her in her arms, because she knows it won’t be welcome.

Dina’s voice comes sharp and angry. “ _Well?_ ”

Ellie feels her heart slamming in her chest. Her hands shake. Her throat goes dry. 

Dina’s looking at her, waiting for her to say _something_. Some excuse, some explanation, _something_.

When she opens her mouth, nothing comes out.

Dina’s nostrils flare. “ _No?_ Well, then allow me.” Ellie flinches when Dina strides towards her and jabs a finger in her chest. “I waited for you for three _fucking_ weeks. _Three weeks,_ I held out for you, Ellie. Alone, with _our son,_ in that empty fucking house.”

There’s nothing but scorn in her voice. Her eyes shine with tears but not one is shed.

“You know how much he cried after you left? He would cry for so long some nights, I don’t think either of us would sleep. It was like he _knew_. Knew that his mother chose chasing some -- some psycho over him.”

Hot and scalding shame pours over Ellie. Her heart is in her throat. The words still don’t come.

“Still nothing?” Dina fumes. “You don’t have _anything_ to say for yourself? At all?”

Ellie draws in a breath. “I-I…” is all she can manage, before it dies in her throat.

A flash of pain, hurt, anguish passes over Dina’s face, mixes with her fury, and she takes a step back. They look at one another. For a moment, it feels like they’re strangers, examining one another strangely, as if they hadn’t spent years together, fighting and surviving and raising a family in a place they’d once called their own.

Something drains from Dina. She takes another step back, shakes her head, and sighs, “Fuckin’ figures,” before turning.

Panic strikes through Ellie.

 _"N-No!_ Wait!”

She rushes after Dina and grabs her wrist.

Dina gasps, whirls, and takes Ellie with her. Ellie stumbles and lets go. 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Dina spits, alarmed and holding her wrist.

“Dina,” Ellie flounders, “I-I’m sorry, I -- I never meant --”

“No, y’know what? I don’t want to hear it, Ellie,” Dina interrupts firmly, squaring her shoulders. “Okay? I just _don’t._ Whatever bullshit you’re about to say, whatever plans you have for ‘making things better’, fuck _all of it._ I don’t care.” 

“I --”

“I _needed_ you. Don’t you get that?”

“I -- I know --”

“Well, you didn’t seem to get that when it mattered. You think _I_ wasn’t hurting?” Dina sneers, “You think I wanted to just let it all go? After _everything?_ You -- You --” She growls in frustration and pushes Ellie. Hard. “You fucked me over! You made everything a million times worse for me by leaving!”

Her eyes seem to search for _something_ in Ellie’s; but when she finds nothing, her face crumples and she breathes out shallowly. Her hands, fisted at her sides, come loose, and for a moment, she stares downward.

“Just what was I supposed to do without you, Ellie?” she whispers.

Ellie shatters into a million pieces. She wants to reach out and touch her, hold her hand and keep it steady. But she can only stand there, all of her willpower blown out of her, winding her hands together like a fucking child.

“I’m _sorry,_ Dina.” 

It’s quiet and pathetic and not enough, _never_ enough. 

Dina glares cruelly, angry tears lighting a path down her face.

“You sure fucking are,” she bites back, before shoving past Ellie and leaving her there in the cemetery, trembling and alone.

* * *

Dina runs. 

She runs and she runs and she doesn’t stop until she reaches home and finally allows her legs to give out. She collapses in the yard.

She heaves, gasps for air, and tries to cover her mouth to swallow down her sobs.

Ellie wasn’t what she’d been expecting. Dina doesn’t know how she thought seeing Ellie again -- _seeing_ her, _talking_ to her, _telling_ her just how she felt -- would go but _that_ wasn’t it.

She was damn near unrecognizable, nothing like how she remembers. She’d been thin before, but _this_ Ellie looked as if she might be taken away if the wind blew too hard. She was practically drowning in her clothes; they were hanging off her limbs and swaying with every movement. Her skin was rough-looking, tanner and pinker, freckles dark against her face, and it was marred with new scars, some whiting already, others still red and healing. And her hair was longer, brushing just past her shoulders, ratty and tousled and unkempt.

She’s far from the strong, sweet person Dina remembers, larger, grander than her, the person who’d paraded around their home pretending their son was a rocketship, who played guitar and sang gently as they lounged after supper, who told stupid jokes just to make her feel better. She’s not the stubborn idiot who Dina had always imagined would come racing to find her to apologize and finally, _finally_ make the fucking effort.

She’s a ghost, a shell left behind by that person, small and gaunt and huddled in on herself, unsure and lower than Dina had ever seen her.

She didn’t seem real. 

Though Ellie had been standing right there in front of her, she didn’t _feel_ real.

It was sickening.

Dina has to force herself not to feel any kind of pity for Ellie. She _chose_ this. She _chose_ to leave and do this to herself. To abandon her, JJ, their home, _everything_ for someone she’d clung harder to than them.

_I’m done. It’s over. I’m over it._

But it _hurts_ , seeing Ellie like that. Hunched in the cemetery in front of Joel’s headstone, talking to him like he’s the only one she _can_ talk to. 

What she’d said had been cruel -- she feels it -- but it had also hurt to enter the now-foreign house and to miss hearing pretty music and dancing in the kitchen and feeling kisses pepper up her neck and sleeping against a warm body and feeling loved and _safe_.

It’d _hurt_ to leave everything behind.

Dina had lingered for days, unwilling to part with her dream home, whereas Ellie had left without another thought. 

Did it even hurt for her?

...Had Ellie even loved her enough for it to hurt?

 _I’m done, I’m done, I’m_ done _._

Dina curls in on herself, hugging her arms around her body, and weeps, until Robin finds her in the yard some time later and gently coaxes her inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was inspired by "Dear" by PurpleSunrise to make Maria a more central character. Not many fics have her front and center despite her being Ellie's family too and I just...really like her. Was also sorta inspired by "Lima Bean Man" by Jack Stauber while writing the intro on Dina's anxiety and depression. (I hope maybe someone caught the reference.)
> 
> (I feel like I'm botching Dina's character because I don't relate to her as much as Ellie, but I'm TRYING HERE.)
> 
> Also, I tried very hard not to go down the rabbit hole of the ins and outs of the recovery process for dehydration and undernourishment, but take what I actually wrote on it with a grain of salt PLEASE.


	3. let me down, let me down slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments! I loved reading through all of them, especially the long ones, which I read over and over. :) There's definitely way more than I ever expected so sorry for not replying. (I don't wanna get a big head about it.)
> 
> Anyway, chapter title is from "What's It Gonna Be?" by Shura.
> 
> (Also, HOLY SHIT, this chapter's a hefty one. 8k!!! Holy shit!!!!)

Over the next couple days, Ellie all too willingly withdraws from her makeshift recovery plan, and stays in her room in a reckless, spiraling attempt to remain dead to the world and everyone in it -- or, at least she tries to, but Maria refuses to let her. Whatever Maria’s routine had been before, she pushes its limits to make sure Ellie gets up and eats with her.

“Sorry, Ellie,” she says with a shrug when Ellie grumbles and struggles to sit upright, “I’m just too used to having someone to eat with again.”

(Whatever she's playing at, it works.)

Ellie tells her nothing when she asks what she’s glum about -- having not spoken much since seeing Dina -- but, like many times before, she’s sure she already knows, or at least can hazard a fair guess. She shakes it off and avoids Maria’s scrutinizing looks.

Her appetite is no better than before. In fact, it feels like it’s gotten worse. But as far as progress goes, she finds herself able to at least shovel down enough for Maria to get off her back. It still isn’t much. But her nausea wanes the slightest bit and can get it all down with a few firm thumps to her chest.

The days lump together.

Dina stays on her mind for the entirety of them. Their encounter at the cemetery replays over and over in her head. She thinks of the anger on Dina’s face, her pained melancholy when she dropped her head low. 

_Just what was I supposed to do without you, Ellie?_

The sorrowful voice, the wounded stare, raw with aching emotion. Ellie forces herself to hold the memory for as long as possible till it’s singed into her skull, what she’s done to Dina, how far she’s pushed her.

Ellie had left her all alone, with no one. As her mother had. As Marlene had. As Joel…

Her greatest fear, inflicted upon the both of them, by Ellie herself. How many times did she cry in their bed by herself? How long did JJ cry?

How long had she felt alone after she left?

How long had she felt alone _before?_

_I’m sorry._

Ellie wishes she could say it over and over, for as many times as she needs to to convey her remorse.

She’d expected Dina’s ire, her hatred, but that doesn’t mean it stung any less to actually face it. She deserved it, and much more, after what she did. She’d floundered and fumbled for words, as if she had any right to, caught between explaining herself and keeping it in. It wouldn’t have made it better, she tells herself over and over. Dina _knows_. She knows why Ellie left; out of anyone in the entire town, she’s reserved the right to yell at Ellie, cut her off, push her around.

_Where do I go from here?_

Of course, Dina had yelled at her, but after that, what happens? She’s right in not wanting to hear...whatever it was that was going to tumble out of Ellie’s mouth, but will it just stay that way? Will she ever get to tell her she regretted it even before reaching Abby, even before leaving? Will they ever be able to talk again? The way they used to? 

Do they just have to avoid one another now?

And JJ -- what about JJ? Does she just...never get to see him again?

What’s she hoping to happen at this point?

It all thumps, stone after stone, onto her chest till she’s hardly able to feel herself inhaling. The swarming thoughts and the dull ache are too much.

She longs for a drink. A strong one.

It’s ill-advised, with her still recovering from dehydration, but it gnaws at her. One drink couldn’t hurt, she thinks. Just one.

Another problem is there’s not a single bottle in Maria’s house. Ellie’s snuck around a few times while Maria was gone, searching for something she could take _just_ a sip out of, _just_ to numb the pain, but strangely, nothing. Not in the cupboard, not on any bookshelf, not buried deep in the china hutch. Nothing at all.

It leaves her with one dreadful option.

For the third time since her arrival, Ellie dons a thick coat and boots; for the second time, a pair of mittens; and for the first time, a clean pair of jeans.

* * *

The electronic shop is quiet like always, save for the clink and clank of everyone hard at work with their repairs and the murmuring between Dane and Imani, ribbing one another like always.

Most days, Dina is content to just put her earphones in and run through both sides of her favorite cassette maybe two or three times and truly sink into the music and the memories it brought with it, before switching a different, less-loved one, but today, she sits and listens to the ambience. 

Just days prior, she’d tossed the infernal Walkman -- one of the few things she’d allowed herself to keep of Ellie -- unkindly into her dresser and buried it deep beneath her mess of clothes. But it’d done nothing to rid her of the shiver that Ellie’s image had left crawling across her shoulders.

The tape is a lovely thing despite her revulsion of it now. It doesn’t contain the loveliest music but it’s something she and Ellie had listened to together when they were younger -- a strange tradition that had started around one of her last breakups with Jesse, the second or third to last. She had thrown herself recklessly into work and taken up later and longer patrol shifts and wouldn’t come back until very late in the evening.

She was never particularly keen on sitting tired and alone in her flat, so she’d trudge to Ellie’s and practically force her way in to hang out. Ellie never protested more than the usual initial joke (“Almost like this is more your place than mine at this point, huh?") and thankfully, never questioned why she came to see _her_ first and not _Jesse._

Around that time, they had pulled away from their usual dynamic of telling one another most everything. Something had made Ellie more standoffish than she'd ever been and she'd often spent her time practically confined to her flat. But Dina liked to make sure she wasn’t alone either; it was win-win. And Ellie was always listening to that tape around then. It was the newest in her collection, before she took off to God-knows-where, salvaged from the lost and found, and in private, made her a charmingly annoying, head-banging monstrosity for three months straight.

Ellie had offered up the right earphone that first time. At Dina’s raised brow, Ellie had smiled, tired-eyed, and said, _“Aw, just give it a try.”_

Needless to say, it was the loudest, most awful music she’d ever heard, but Ellie bobbed her head, squeezed her eyes shut, and smiled so hard her nose wrinkled; Dina would’ve let her ears go numb from listening to The Sick Habit for hours on end if it meant she could stare at Ellie in her full passion for just as long.

The music is the farthest thing from lovely. But it certainly holds the loveliest memories.

Up until recently, she’d tried to force herself to be content with the fact that Ellie would never be coming back. It’d hurt to think it, but the months kept coming with no sign of her, no word back. It was something she had to come to terms with, whether she liked it or not. It was just another horrible thing to happen to her in this shitty world. The sooner she moves on, she’d figured, the sooner she can wrangle her life back under control, get a grip, face forward like she’s always aimed to do.

The tape and the Walkman had been the tiniest bit of solace in that respect. Little pieces of Ellie she could love and look back on when she needed to.

But seeing Ellie the other day had soured it, along with most things. Made the memories boil over in her head and cause it to throb.

So the quiet is enough for her. She can deal with quiet. Maybe her thoughts will take a page of the workshop’s book and shut the fuck up too.

…She just feels bad. She shouldn’t, she thinks, because her anger had been raw and honest, but looking back, she could’ve handled things better. She shouldn’t have lost her cool like that, she thinks, but...seeing Ellie like that brought a harsh spark of wrath in her chest and the words just kept coming.

Now that she’s cooled down and mulled things over night after night -- all in a time span where she hasn’t once seen Ellie while out -- she’s at war with herself. There’s still a part of her that worries for Ellie, so deeply, even after all this time; another part of her, wriggling and festering, hates that she does. That part made her think taking it out on Ellie would make her feel better, _finally_ calm the storm inside her.

But when she was finally able to breathe, she didn’t find clarity but cold sameness. She’s still grieving a loss she thought she’d gotten over, still feeling as though she’s the only person on Earth, despite being surrounded by --

“You look like you’re havin’ a day.”

Dina blinks and lifts her magnifying visor to find someone leaning with an arm against the doorway, looking at her with amusement.

“Oh. Trevor, hey.” Hesitantly, she puts her tools down and stares at her hands. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. I’m, uh, a little distracted.”

Trevor grins teasingly. “I can tell. Considering how everyone else has already left for lunch and you’re still here.”

“Wh --” Dina finally looks around; the other workbenches are empty and the clock has struck a quarter past one. “Oh. Huh.”

“Yeah, _’oh-huh’_ ,” he chuckles and crosses his arms, coming to stand halfway between her and the door. 

Dina sighs, pulls off her visor, and sets her tools carefully in the toolbox nearby.

“Well, sorry if you needed something fixed. Maybe, uh, come back around two or three when someone can --”

“What? No, no,” Trevor laughs. He steps closer, leans against the workbench and into her space. “I’m here for you.”

“Oh.” She pauses in closing her toolbox. “Uh…” She eases the box shut and avoids his eyes.

He continues, unbothered, “Thought we could go have lunch together at my place.”

Dina fights the urge to grimace.

Trevor is a tall, fit fellow, a capable patrolman in every way and one of the best in the field, like his father. He was a good friend of Jesse’s when they were younger, and hers too, by some extension. He’s not too bad to look at, with a sharp nose and jawline, scruffy reddish-brown hair that brushes along his nape, and electric blue eyes surrounded by a smattering of freckles on his cheeks. 

Strong. Hard-working. Reliable. Potentially an excellent provider. 

The very epitome of Jackson’s own brand of desirable bachelor. 

Dina would be lying if she said they weren’t involved, but there’s some truth to it. He was one of many men to reach out and talk to her after coming to Jackson, and almost like the rest, she planned on shutting him down entirely, but something about him gave her pause. Maybe it was that he’d been close to Jesse. Maybe it was because he’d offered a shoulder to cry on once or twice. She doesn’t really know.

He’s...nice. Friendly. Always smiling at her and joking without a care in the world. He doesn’t push her to talk and treats her with care. He’s good company.

There’d been a dinner here, an amicable drink there. Maybe a quickie or two tossed in there somewhere. 

It was never enough to be anything real. Always at night, behind closed doors, away from anyone who’d get the wrong idea. And there’s never been an explicit talk or a label or any soft, romantic touches, nor does Dina want it that way. Sometimes, he’s there and she’s there, and that’s all that needs to happen. Sometimes, he seems to get that, but _sometimes_ , he dangerously walks the line.

It'd been nice at first, having someone to hold her, but it seems these days that he's trying a little too hard to please her. Just like Jesse.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, not really feeling sorry, “but I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll just go for a walk.”

“Oh.” There’s a flicker of disappointment in his eyes, before he brightens again. “I could join you, ‘f you want."

She sharply tugs her coat on. “Trev, look, I can’t. I’m sorry. I just...have a lot on my mind right now. Okay?”

He’s quiet for just a moment, as she goes for her bag. It worries her a little, but then, he says surprisingly easily, “Okay,” with a soft, understanding smile.

She nods, eyeing him, before heading for the door. 

“Okay. I’ll see y --”

“It’s ‘cause of Ellie, isn’t it? ‘Cause she’s back in town?”

Dina nearly stumbles.

“I mean...it’s just...I get it, y’know?” he continues, sounding like he’s trying to be comforting and understanding but all Dina hears is him overstepping. “I can’t imagine it’s eas --”

“ _Trev._ ” Dina feels her eyes shut heavily and a rough sigh escape her. “Seriously?”

When she turns back to glare, he relents, arms up defensively but not looking entirely apologetic. “ _Okay._ Okay. I know. I won’t bring her up, but, hey.” He comes over, puts a wide hand on her shoulder and squeezes. “If she messes with you, you just tell me. I’ll set her straight.”

She’s taken aback and glaring at his hand now, staunchly avoiding the protective apprehension she knows is swimming in his eyes, refusing to feel patronized.

As _if_ she’s going to come running to him about Ellie, of all people.

As if she can’t handle her own fucking business.

Dina jerks her shoulder out of reach and vanishes from the shop before he can call after her.

* * *

You could hear a pin drop when Ellie walks into the Tipsy Bison.

The diner is usually always bustling with noise and chatter, and maybe there’d been some semblance of that before she stepped in but it’s deathly quiet. Every eye is on her, everyone she’s ever known, and then some, leering at her like she’s some kind of alien.

Maybe last week (or the week before that, or the week before _that,_ and so on), she would’ve looked down at her feet and trembled at the amount of attention being paid to her, or even abandoned the idea of getting a drink completely -- but after her ordeal with Dina, she couldn’t care less how much they stare or gossip.

Ellie doesn’t know what it is exactly that’s making her throw it all out the window. Maybe it’s the hunger for a flame in her stomach. Maybe it’s the heavy buzzing in the back of her skull feeding her bad advice.

What does matter what they think, when the one person who really matters doesn’t want anything to do with her? How much worse can things get for her?

When she walks in, they clear an uneasy path. It only unsettles her a little.

She slumps into an isolated seat at the edge of the bar, tugs her mittens off, and wrings them in her lap. She glares at the countertop, trying not to feel anxious over the sound of people shuffling away from her.

“What can I -- oh,” comes a miserly voice.

Ellie glances up and nearly snorts. “Seth.”

Seth looks surprised and a touch put-off by her appearance. He looks no different from the last time she’d seen him, if a little more shaggy and wrinkly. But he doesn’t wear the scowl she expects him to wear. He looks odd without it.

“Heard you were back in town but wasn’t sure if I should believe it.”

“Yeah, well, here I am,” she says plainly.

She expects a harsh retort, a sneer, something about her needing to learn some respect, but Seth merely _hpmh’s_ and asks for her order. Ellie blinks, looks at him strangely, and asks for a halved grilled cheese sandwich and a pint of homebrewed beer.

A low murmur returns to the Bison some time later, after the patrons seem to decide they’ve gawked enough and that whatever it is they were waiting for won’t come at all.

Ellie has managed to eat -- and even slightly enjoy -- a quarter of her sandwich and downed half her pint, when a faint commotion reaches her ears through the chatter. 

There’s shouting, stumbling, and a second later, the door bursts open and a heaving, sweaty Tommy is there, searching through the congregation with his good eye.

Oh, no.

Ellie shrinks in her seat, wishing she could disappear entirely. Twice in one week is just her fucking luck. She feels her sandwich begin to turn on her.

She looks away, but she can hear him talking, asking something; someone points her out to him.

“Ellie…?” she hears and winces at his complete disbelief. Suddenly, she’s wrangled into a hug and immediately, she’s hit by a hard mix of sweat, smoke, old leather, and, most pungently, alcohol.

“Ellie!” Tommy gives a relieved, out-of-breath laugh. “Holy shit. Holy _shit!_ ”

When her shock subsides, she brings her hands to his back.

“...Hi, Tommy.”

His hugs are nothing like Joel’s. They’ve never been the hugging type of people and neither of the brothers ever did it all that often, but when Joel hugged her, he hugged her for a long time, fitting her against his chest, his arms strong and warm. It was always as if he never really wanted to let go. 

Tommy has mostly only ever hugged her when she (or the both of them) needed it and when he did, he always awkwardly pressed her away, as if hugging her at all was a strange concept to him. 

Tommy pulls away and grins at her.

“Got-damn, girl! You had us all fuckin’ worried!”

Like Seth, he’s hardly changed since she’d seen him last -- a very harsh memory that digs at her skull. His beard isn’t very well-groomed, his dirty blond hair is graying and messy in its loose ponytail, and even through his layers, his beer gut is prominent.

Tommy continues, slurring, “How -- How long’s it been?”

“Too long,” she sighs, “Almost six months.”

“Six months. Whew.” He shakes his head. “Too damn long.”

It’s then that she notices Tommy’s got his gear on him, backpack and rifle slung over his shoulders.

“You weren’t just out on patrol, were you?”

“Wh -- _oh_ , nah,” he chuckles, setting his rifle down beneath the bar, “Been down south on the trade route to Alpine with a couple ‘a newbies. There ain’t never any trouble down that way, just wanted to show ‘em the ropes of handlin’ trades.” He wrestles his pack onto the floor with a hefty sigh. “We decided to stay a couple weeks. Real nice people, make you feel right at home. It was a nice change ‘o scenery too. It gets awful borin’ around here lookin’ at the same faces, ‘specially now.”

She doesn’t totally agree, but she shrugs. There’s something in the way he says that that doesn't sit right with her. When Ellie looks around for a second, the onlookers’ gazes are more on Tommy now than her, wary. She can see Seth squinting at _him_ \-- not _her_ \-- from the other side of the bar as Tommy produces a flask from his coat pocket and attempts to discreetly take a swig out of his line of sight.

“And...you just got back.”

He wipes his mouth. “‘Bout ten minutes ago, yeah. Imagine my surprise when I heard you were back in town.” He’s entirely oblivious to her and everyone else’s discomfort. With a wide grin, he leans in conspiratorially. “Though I did hear a few things from some caravans a couple months ago.”

“You -- You did?” Ellie leans back to avoid the wafting of sour-smelling breath.

“Yep. Word kept floatin’ around about a scrawny girl, drenched in blood, single-handedly takin’ down some fascist, slave-havin’ militia group in California and burnin’ their whole compound to the ground!” He weaves his hands in the air, like he’s telling some grand story. “Set everyone free too!”

“ _Tommy_.” Ellie loses whatever nerve she had when she stepped in, and looks around, hoping no one was actively listening. Sure enough, a few people avert their eyes the moment she turns toward them. Shit. _Shit_.

“Fuckin’ _knew_ it was you, the minute I heard it,” Tommy slurs, paying no mind to Ellie’s restlessness, “Everyone in this damn town went around actin’ like you was dead, but I knew better. S’like yer goddamn _invincible_.”

Her hand tingles painfully in its place on her lap. It curls into a fist, palm sticky with sweat.

She hates the admiration in his voice. She hates how carefree he’s being. She knows exactly where this is going. Dread boils like hell in her gut.

“Tommy. Tommy, _listen_ \--”

“Hah, listen to me, goin’ on like that. I ain’t let you talk at all.” Tommy reclines now, slowly stretching out his bum leg, before sitting right back up with his hands on his knees, looking at her expectantly.

Ellie bites her lip hard. Sips her beer.

“Well, c’mon,” he pokes. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Tell me you found her.”

 _Fuck_.

Her drink nearly slips down her windpipe and she has to pat her chest and clear her throat.

“...I found her.”

He looks elated. “And? Don’t hold out on me! How’d you do it?”

“I --” Her heart is beating frantically in her chest. She doesn’t _want_ to lie. She doesn’t want to hide the truth. But --

_What a fuckin’ joke._

The words jumble up and she stammers, “Tommy, I-I really don’t want to talk about this now.”

“Aw, c’ _mon,_ Ellie,” he eagerly prods, and this time there’s some desperation in his voice. “I know it musta been hard, but I’m dyin’ here. I gotta know.”

The back of her neck feels hot. Her throat aches horribly.

She could say so many things right now. She could tell him she couldn’t go through with it. She could tell him Joel was the reason why. She could tell him it was fucking hell out there in California, with those Rattler fucks and their stupid, fucked up slavery compound, tell him how she’d gone all that way for nothing, _again_.

She could tell him he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up in the first place. She could ask, _Why the fuck did you come to the farm that day? Why the fuck did you give me a reason to leave?_

_Why couldn’t you just let it go?_

But she can’t say any of that to Tommy’s face. How can she? It was no one’s choice for her to leave but her own; she has no right whatsoever to blame Tommy for any of what happened afterward. 

It’s a weird fucking feeling, to face this man, the very last living piece of Joel she has, and not know what to say. She doesn’t know this Tommy. This grizzled, unstable, out-of-sorts man whom everyone in the room is nervous around, rather than reverent of like she remembers.

She’s terrified of how this stranger will react.

Her mouth draws shut firmly. And she just looks at him with misty eyes.

Slowly, the giddy anticipation fades and his smile and shoulders drop. Through several confused blinks, Ellie sees mounting realization and with it, flashes of anger.

“You --” His eyes are begging for a definite answer, clinging to the hope that she’ll give the one he’s been longing for. When she doesn’t give it, his face crumples.

“ _No_ ,” he says miserably, still unbelieving, “No, don’t tell me.”

“Tommy,” she says as calmly as she can, but there’s a tremble in her voice even still, “I’m sorry.”

“But you said you _found ‘er!_ ” he yells, causing more heads to turn.

“I -- I did -- Tommy, can you please --”

“You’re _kidding_ me.” His voice hitches into a low growl and he gets to his feet, swaying unsteadily as he does. When Ellie reaches out to support him, he bats her away harshly and paces a few steps, shaking his head. “So you were gone six whole fuckin’ months and you mean to tell me you didn’t even get her?”

“Listen --”

“Yeah, please, enlighten me, Ellie,” he says impatiently, “Enlighten me on -- on how you found her and _somehow --”_

“I let her go,” she whispers.

Tommy jolts as if he’s been struck.

“ _What?_ ”

It’s like poison in her stomach, saying it like it’s something she actually, completely regrets and seeing Tommy’s face morph into a sneer, but it’s the truth. That’s all it is. And yet --

Tommy explodes, “You can’t be fuckin’ serious!”

Ellie winces but tries to stay firm. 

“You made me a promise! You said you’d make her pay! Jesus fuckin’ Christ...” He paces back and forth, limping the whole way, a hand to his wrinkling forehead. “What -- so all o’ that was fer nothin’ then? All the shit we went through? You leavin’, goin’ all the way to California, it was all a fuckin’ waste?”

“Shouldn't have even left in the first place,” she murmurs.

“What?” he challenges.

Fine. _Fine_. What more does she have to lose?

Ellie downs the rest of her beer and slams the stein onto the counter, meeting Tommy’s blazen eyes with her own.

“I said, I shouldn’t have even left in the first fucking place, Tommy,” she says firmly, glaring.

Tommy stares, incredulous, then scoffs. “So everything Joel did for you, it don’t matter at all, huh?”

“I didn’t say --”

“Well, that’s what it sounds like to me, Ellie. That man risked his life for you a thousand times and _this_ is how you repay ‘im?”

“What good would it have done?” She’s cracking already, she can feel it. “It’s not gonna bring him back, it’s not gonna fix anything --”

“Goddammit, if it was one of us, Joel woulda --”

“I’m _not_ Joel,” she seethes, tears burning in her eyes. “I know you wanna pretend that I can do all these things, but I _can’t_ do what he did and --” She swallows roughly. Remembers large hands pulling her away from the man she’d butchered -- thrashing, screaming bloody murder -- then having her head pressed tightly to a solid chest, gentle whispers into her hair calming her. “-- and he wouldn’t’ve wanted me to.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” he spits.

Ellie shakes her head; it feels heavy.

“Then you didn’t know him the way I did,” she says quietly, bitterly, but it sets Tommy off.

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Look, she paid. You have to believe me, Tommy, she _paid_ for what she did. You didn’t see her out there --”

“Oh, for God’s -- jus’ save it, Ellie, I don’t wanna hear this shit.” He bends awkwardly to fish his rifle and bag up from the floor and turns to leave.

“Tommy, look what’s happened to us!” Ellie pleads, “Our lives are just--just so fucked up because of this shit. You and Maria split, Dina won’t even speak to me, I’m a fucking pariah in town now. We’re _alone_. You’ve got to stop acting like killing Abby is gonna fix any of it!”

Tommy whirls. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth.” His glare makes her feel afraid; there’s hurt and pain in those eyes. He and Joel share the same eyes, dark and ruthless. He takes a menacing step forward; Ellie automatically holds her hands out, hackles raised. This anger is different from before. It’s _dangerous_.

He jabs a finger in her direction. “Jus’ where do you get off!? You got no fuckin’ right to talk about my life when you ain’t even got the guts to do this -- this _one thing_ for the man who saved your pathetic ass -- my _brother!_ ”

“Tommy.” It’s tense, too tense in here. Everyone’s got their eyes on them, no one daring to make a move. By now, someone would’ve broken them up, but no one is _moving_. Why aren’t they _moving?_ “What are you doing?”

“You fuckin’ coward,” he growls and roughly grips the collar of her sweater.

* * *

Dina hears the commotion before she sees it.

There are small but still-building crowds of people blocking both open entrances of the Bison, looking in at _something_ going on inside. A man is yelling, almost incoherent, and it _sounds_ like a fight is going on. They’re not all that common in Jackson, not to the point where a crowd draws in just to watch. People tend to get along and even when there is a fight, it’s likely to be broken up rather quickly.

When she nears the porch and listens closer, she realizes it’s not just any man -- it’s Tommy.

Immediately she scowls and rolls her eyes. He must’ve just gotten back. Figures, the bastard is already drunk and causing trouble. She doesn’t want any part of whatever mess he’s making. 

She makes to turn on her heel and head for the library, but she hears a second voice, smaller than Tommy’s, arguing with him -- a woman.

“Tommy -- Tommy, please, will you just lis--”

Fuck.

 _Fuck_ , she’d know that voice anywhere.

Tommy was enough of a sign that she should steer clear, but Ellie too? 

She should walk away. She really should.

But before she knows it, she’s on the porch and trying to get a look between the hecklers’ heads. No luck. They’re packed tight and squeezing ever closer just to get a look, drawn closing by the yelling.

Then: she hears an impact. A fist against skin. And everyone exclaims with it, wincing, groaning but there’s no shuffling or movement toward the sound.

Dina surges forth. “M-Move! What are you all doing? Let me through!” She forces her way through the crowd and they part reluctantly to let her in.

Seth is shouting, struggling to get around the bar and past the other patrons to get to Tommy, who stands completely still, a fist still held out and shaking.

Just beyond him Ellie is leaned up against the bar where it meets the wall, with a hand over her face, eyes screwed shut in pain. 

“ _Hey!_ ” she barks, sending a wave of startles throughout the room. Tommy whips around, looking aghast.

Dina looks around at everyone, glaring. Most of them are people she knows and people Ellie knew since first coming to Jackson. They’re all backed away from Tommy and Ellie, out of arm’s reach and still retreating. Some look ashamed under her gaze, some alarmed and caught, and others...simply look disappointed.

“So none of you were gonna do anything? You were just gonna watch?”

Tommy stammers out something unintelligible.

“And _you_ \--” Dina turns her glare on Tommy now, “You’re back -- what -- ten minutes and you’re already drunk and starting shit?”

“I-I didn’t mean to --”

She roughly shoves past him. “Fuckin’ move, Tommy.”

Seth finally makes it over. He grips Tommy by the shoulders and directs him out. “C’mon, you, _out_. Take it up with Maria. All of you too! Outta my diner! This ain’t a circus!” A shaken Tommy leaves with him, along with the droves of gawkers.

Ellie looks stunned and pitiful, blinking rapidly, shocked to see her. “D-Dina, wh --”

“Shut up.” She yanks Ellie’s hand away from her face and sees the river of blood flowing from her nose and smearing her face. She grimaces and grabs Ellie’s arm. “Come on.”

“What -- Where --”

Dina turns back to give her a look.

Thankfully, Ellie shuts up and lets Dina drag her out of the diner and away from the onlookers.

* * *

“Is it just your nose?”

“Mmh,” Ellie grunts, wincing as Dina presses the damp cloth to her face, “My eye hurts. I think I might’ve...hit my head too. On the wall.”

“Jesus.” Dina shakes her head. “ _Fucking_ Tommy.” She pulls the cloth away. The bleeding has stopped so she feels gently at her nose. It’s not broken, so Ellie doesn’t wince too badly, and the swelling looks minor. But a reddish bruise is already beginning to show on her cheek, just below her eye.

They don’t talk at all. Ellie keeps her head down, eyes trained on her hands sandwiched in her lap. Dina’s half-glad for it but she can practically see the gears turning in Ellie’s head, like she’s trying to process what happened. Her brows crease every few seconds and her eyes grow wetter and wetter and -- stop. Fucking stop looking at her.

Everyone is still out to lunch -- thank God -- which makes it easier to drag Ellie in and sit her on a stool in the backroom while Dina pops out again quickly to grab some ice from the grocer.

She returns to find Ellie slouched over, staring woozily at her feet, and looking rather sorry sitting there with blood on her shirt.

“Here.” Dina holds the ice pack out to her. Ellie doesn’t move, just breathes shallowly. “Ellie.”

When Ellie looks up, her face is wet with tears. Dina tightens her jaw and grabs her arm to place the ice pack in her hand, but when she turns it over -- she sees them. Two red stumps where her ring and pinkie fingers used to be, healed over but radiating pain.

Air escapes her quickly. It’s only when Ellie twitches and realizes she’s doing that Dina remembers to breathe.

Neither of them pull away, together staring down at the wrapped, mangled hand, now tense and twitching from being held. 

Questions, exclamations threaten to teem from her mouth but Dina swallows them down and decidedly says nothing. She gives her the ice pack.

When Ellie only stares at it, Dina gently guides it to her eye.

“...nks,” she whispers after a beat, curling those fingers in toward her palm to hide them.

That should be that, Dina thinks. Ellie should leave and Dina should just get back to work early.

But they both stay rooted to their places. The silence is delicate and haunting. It’s much like the other day, when Ellie couldn’t even defend herself, but Dina isn’t waiting for her to stay anything this time. 

Ellie looks ashamed, embarrassed, wounded, _afraid_ , like a dog that’s been kicked. Dina watches her sniffle and chew her lip pathetically. Then, she drags another stool over to Ellie’s and sits beside her.

After a moment, Ellie breaks the tension in the air.

“Did, um,” she starts quietly, wiping at her tears, “Did you hear any of what Tommy said?”

Dina looks into her eyes, then away. “No. Could hardly understand him anyway, with all that yelling.”

“Oh. Okay.”

When Ellie doesn’t say anything further, Dina is almost determined to leave it like that, but the thought of Tommy is like a throbbing burn against her skin.

“Figured Maria would’ve warned you about him,” she mumbles, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.

A shrug. “She’s hardly mentioned him at all.”

“I don’t blame her.”

Ellie shakes her head slowly, like the whole thing is vexing. “...What _happened_ to him?”

Dina sighs heavily. “You know what happened.”

“But I didn’t expect him to -- I didn’t think he’d ever --”

“Yeah, well, I expected a lot out of Tommy,” Dina grouses. A flinch tells her Ellie knows exactly what she means. “Guess we’re both disappointed.”

Another stretch of silence passes between them. There’s a sick, vindictive wriggling in her stomach that basks in Ellie’s sore lack of a response; she attempts to quell it when she sees Ellie’s grimace and her hand tighten around the ice pack.

She clears her throat.

“Ellie. Look at me.” She waits until Ellie wipes at her face again and looks at her. “I don’t want to have to do this again.”

The look on her face is unreadable; she rubs her exposed eye and mumbles, “Okay.”

"It’s not that I _wouldn’t_ , if it --”

“No, no, I get it,” she says, closing her eye, “It might be better if I avoid the Bison anyway. And...most places.” Ellie rubs the back of her neck. “People don’t like me very much anymore.”

Dina wrinkles her nose as she remembers the guilty faces of the other residents while they simply stood by. “Shitheads. Probably eager to let the two biggest bums in Jackson swing at each other.” Fuck. She didn’t mean to say it that way.

But Ellie chuckles, almost sadly. “Yeah. I guess so.” And then, with the barest amount of mirth: “You know I’m in some shit when Seth is nicer to me than Tommy.”

It's more angering than humorous to Dina. She doesn’t want to ask. She doesn’t want to _know_. She’s long since washed her hands of Tommy and anything having to do with Abby and the shitstorm that was Seattle, but she isn’t sure she’ll ever work up the nerve to ask again.

“Let me guess,” she mutters, “Asking you about your big trip?”

Ellie flinches almost violently and looks at Dina with unease. She doesn’t look surprised, rather a bit afraid, like she fears a repeat of the scene at the Bison is coming. Her free arm wraps around her own middle tightly, and she looks down again, nodding.

“Thought he’d be fuckin’ happy. You _went_. That’s what he wanted, right?”

Dina spends a moment looking at her closely, tensely. Ellie is shrinking further and further in, thin legs twisting around one another, body tightening, and cannot, for all her examining, meet Dina’s eyes.

She knows she doesn’t need to prod Ellie to get her to talk; eventually, Ellie takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. 

“I --”

Dina waits. 

“I found her,” Ellie whispers.

Coldness floods her. 

“A-And…?” Dina asks, unable to stop herself.

“And --”

“Was it worth it?” she plows through forcefully, doubling back, deciding _no_ , she doesn’t want to hear what she did, how she did it, why --

Ellie blinks, unsure, and pulls the ice pack from her face. “Was... _what_ worth it?”

“ _Killing her,_ ” Dina chokes out, “Was it worth it? Was it worth _leaving us?_ ”

She’s shaking, hands gripping the edges of the seat of the stool like a vice, and she’s staring hard at Ellie with everything she’s got. 

What she expects is for Ellie to falter. Look away again and be at a loss for words like she has been.

But Ellie looks at her for a long, _long_ moment, like she’s trying to parse something out, choose her words wisely. She no longer looks lightheaded, her eyes instead clearing to examine her soberly.

She straightens and turns her body towards Dina, just a bit, regarding her with a painfully earnest look. 

“Dina,” she says, “I let her go.”

“...What?”

“I didn’t -- I mean, I --” Ellie stares past her for more than a second, then blinks rapidly, face pained, drawing her lips in, and again begins to think. She swallows and licks her lips. “I let her go,” she repeats at last with a great effort.

Dina doesn’t know what she’s feeling right now. So Ellie had gone for nothing. Left them to kill Abby and didn’t do it. A sheer waste. But...she didn’t just _not kill her;_ she let her go. The Ellie from that fateful night that she bitterly remembers had been dead set on finishing it, once and for all, even if it meant losing everything she held dear. There was nothing stopping her at that point.

She had always imagined that only one of them would come out of it alive, and it would most likely have been Abby. Abby had nearly killed them both and Tommy and _did_ kill Jesse and Joel, almost entirely by herself. The thought had left her raw with fear some nights, early on, before eventually she was sure Ellie had already been killed. Ellie’s a fighter, a killer, but Abby was that and more -- _ten times_ more.

But she’d never considered this. After everything, she didn’t think Ellie could just let it go.

There’s a flood of relief and confusion and ever-present anger and longing to know more. What happened out there? What changed her mind?

Ellie is watching her, nervously, searching for a response.

Dina doesn’t look at her, focusing instead on her own restless leg, her hands clasping together and twisting. 

“What does that mean?” she asks in a small whisper.

Ellie releases the breath she’s been holding. “I...I don’t really know,” she says, looking just as lost as she sounds. “I just wanna put it behind me. I-I want to -- to feel right again.”

Her voice is so fragile that Dina instinctually looks at her to make sure she’s okay. It’s a mistake; she’s looking right at her.

Ellie rubs her own arm but isn’t the nervous, jittery mess she was at the cemetery. She doesn’t emanate uncertainty like just a second ago.

“Dina,” she says, more sure, more resolute than before, but still quaking, “I really am sorry. I never should have left. I never should’ve --” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I-I should’ve tried harder. I -- I really want to -- I hope I can --”

“Ellie…” Dina chokes out, painfully, knowing what she wants to say, “We can’t just -- be together again. You realize that, right?”

Ellie stammers, “I know, I just -- I --" She swallows and grips her arm hard. "I-I don’t wanna be alone anymore. And yeah, maybe I want what we used to have, but I-I know I fucked it up and -- and--” She shakes her head roughly, and says again, “I’m sorry.”

They both know that she can say it all she likes but none of it will make it better. It doesn’t whisk away the nights she spent alone crying, the moments Ellie missed with JJ. It doesn’t take away that persistent haze that hangs around Dina still.

“Ellie, it’s been half a year. _Six fucking months_. I’ve been…” She sinks her hand through her own hair. “God, I’ve been _agonizing_ over you ever since.”

The next apology is there, on Ellie’s lips again, but Dina cuts her off with a shake of her head.

“Stop. Just _stop_.” Ellie flinches back. “I can’t, Ellie, okay? I can’t go through _any_ of that again.”

“I’m staying in Jackson,” Ellie says, firm yet pleading, “I’m not going to leave again.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” Dina laughs bitterly, shaking her head more and more. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a lot of this before. All the ‘want-to’s’ and the ‘I’m-sorry’s’. You said we were in it together. Fixing up the farm, raising a kid -- our fucking _kid_ \-- moving _on_. How fucking stupid was I to even believe you the first time?”

Stupid, _so_ stupid, and horribly, horribly in love with the one person left who could possibly understood her pain.

Ellie doesn’t have anything to say to that. She’d already begun to crumble at the mention of JJ. Eyes wet, she releases a pitiful breath, slouches, and tucks her chin against her chest. Dina watches the remorse wash over her in wave after wave.

“I-Is he…” Ellie trembles, wiping at her eyes, “How is he?”

“No.” Dina shakes her head. “You don’t get to ask that.”

“No, right, I just --”

“Missed a lot. Like a lot of the important shit. I...I wanted you to be there but you weren’t. A-And, like, I know this is fucking mean, because I know you love him too, but I just...I don’t feel comfortable talking about him with you, like this.”

“Please,” Ellie says desperately, “Just this once. I just need this.”

 _It comes with so much more than that,_ she wants to say. It comes with everything she missed, everything he laughs at and fixates on and babbles in every attempt to conversate.

But the plea in Ellie’s eyes causes her resolve to crack bit by bit.

“He’s okay. He’s --” She breathes evenly, feels tears in her eyes but wipes them away. “He’s growing everyday. Not even a baby anymore. A _toddler_.”

Ellie’s breath stutters. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Listen...I’m not putting a lot of stock in whether I can just...get over everything. I’ve never really felt like I could. But I want to try. I’m _gonna_ try. It might sound stupid but I want to make things right. I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know _how._ But it’s what I want.”

Dina crosses her arms loosely, tired. “Then you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“No kidding.”

Ellie smiles wryly at her, and it’s sad and honest and rueful; Dina looks away but the image and the words refuse to leave her.

Then, with a deliberating breath, she decides to step past the threshold between them, turns to her, fully, their knees touching in a heart-stoppingly familiar way. She feels the twitch in Ellie’s leg when the contact is made, sees the surprise slacken her face. 

“You really want to make things right?”

Ellie looks at her, blinks, and nods. “Of course.”

“Then, get some help. But it can’t come from me.” Her words feel harsh but she says them in soft mumble -- this much, she wants to be kind about -- and to the surprise of the both of them, reaches out to brush the hair from Ellie’s face and cup her cheek. “Yeah?”

They hold one another’s gaze for a moment, before Ellie nods again lowly, face pink, hand gripping her own thigh like she wants to hold Dina’s hand where it is and is resisting the urge. “Yeah.”

“Good.” 

Dina pulls her hand away, just as chatter filters through from the workshop -- lunch must be over with already -- and she sees the instant panic in Ellie’s eyes. 

“Shit. Here, I’ll, uh, let you out the back so no one sees you.”

“Oh. Y-Yeah. Yes. Yep. Got it.” And Ellie lets Dina usher her out, casting glances in the direction of the noise.

Once out, Ellie takes a deep breath and scampers down the steps into the alley. She looks around for anyone else and when she finds the coast is clear, she turns back to Dina.

“Thanks. It was nice, um, talking,” Ellie says, fiddling with the now-dripping ice pack, “I’ll, uh -- I guess I’ll see you around…?”

“Yeah,” Dina says, feeling a touch light-headed and strangely less uncertain now. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Unlike the last time, Dina is watching her go. She’s not leaving forever to take revenge; not actively choosing to break something that’s already fragile; not damning herself to life alone, but choosing to try harder.

It’s uneasy and it isn’t a whole lot, not now at least. But it’s something, however small.

“Ellie,” she calls, and waits for Ellie to turn. The surprised hope in her eyes makes her swallow and hesitate. “His first word was _‘mama.’_ ”

She expects pride. Or shock. Or shame, or pain. A singular emotion to tell Dina what it means to her. But it’s all there on Ellie’s face, an emotional motley that surges through wet eyes and a tight mouth.

Ellie nods, dons a small, sad yet grateful smile, and stuffs her pockets in her pockets, before finally turning and leaving for Maria’s.

And Dina sits on the steps of the backdoor when Ellie’s long gone, leans against the doorway, to replay it all in her head, again and again. Wondering if Ellie truly meant it. If she really could turn things around for herself. If she could really make things right, however she’d meant it.

Something vindictive in her tells her it’s all hollow promises. Ellie may mean what she says in the moment, but it doesn’t at all affect what actually happens.

But another part of her wants to believe it’s possible. Maybe it’s the way Ellie had said it.

_I don’t wanna be alone anymore._

_I want to make things right._

_I don’t know what that means yet._

_I don’t know how._

_But it’s what I want._

Maybe, just maybe, there had been something there in Ellie’s eyes that she hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

* * *

“I’ll do it,” Ellie says later that night, as she and Maria sit in the living room together. It’s well after Maria has come home from work, more tired-eyed than usual. 

She’d spared Ellie the uncomfortable talk about Tommy, and instead brought home a bottle of whiskey, which she’d promptly locked in the safe in her room, with the promise that they’d share it when she’s better. For now, water is all Ellie will drink. With hunched shoulders and an annoyingly throbbing eye, Ellie begrudgingly agreed.

Maria looks up from her reports. “Do what?”

“The therapy shit. I’ll try it out.”

“Oh.” Maria blinks and then smiles. “Well -- Well, that’s great, Ellie. I’ll talk to Imelda tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Ellie’s hand tingles sorely. She rubs it through the bandages nervously. “Okay.”

“You’ll do great, I promise. And -- oh! I meant to tell you, Seth’s offered you a job.”

“Okay.” Ellie has to do a double-take. “Wait, he _did?_ ” 

“Yeah. Said he’s out of a dishwasher and could use some help. Think of it as an apology for not getting between you and you-know-who sooner. And for your face.”

Ellie can connect the dots well enough now as to why Maria prefers not to even mention Tommy. She snorts, rubs her fingers over the bruise under her eye. “Huh. Wow. _Seth_ actually feels sorry for me for once.”

Maria huffs a laugh. “Now, don’t you go starting fights with _him_ , too. He’s the only one willing to put you to work right now.”

“You don’t have to worry. I have to pay off that sandwich I had earlier anyway.” She stretches and lays herself sideways across the armchair she’s in. “Unless _that_ was pity too. A friggin’ _pity sandwich_.”

Maria looks like she wants to laugh at her but shakes her head chidingly instead. “I’m serious, Ellie.”

“I know, I know.”

* * *

Later, as she lies in bed, the clock at the bedside table flashing 2 A.M., Ellie briefly remembers every savagely disturbed nightmare between Jackson and Santa Barbara and Jackson again, of Dina and JJ lying dead in the kitchen, as she runs in too late. The thought of the both of them being taken from her forever, like Joel and _everyone else_.

She was wrong before; it can be so much worse. Maybe she should be glad it isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Sweat, smoke, old leather, and alcohol are the four cornerstones of Uncle Musk, with which I’m too familiar.
> 
> This took a while because I only post when the next chapter is finished, which could be potentially dangerous but eh. Keeps me workin'. 
> 
> This one was the hardest to write so far, because it has not one, but TWO confrontations for Ellie. Dina's was the hardest for me, so apologies if it seems like it's all over the place. I wrote the directions that I wanted the conversation to go, so it was the gluing it together that was hard.
> 
> And for the record, I LOVE fics where Tommy sees how much of an asshole he was before Ellie even gets to Jackson. But it seems so odd to me the way he acts at the end that I have to be like, okay, Tommy needs to work out some stuff, and I felt seeing Ellie again would be integral to that.


	4. close your eyes and stay like you're supposed to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You miss her, don’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, fellas. Online classes kicked my ass into oblivion and then when the semester ended, I had seasonal depression, HOORAY. But I'm at least happy I managed to get an update out before the new semester. At one point, this was 10k but I axed awkwardly placed scene (thank CHRIST I did), so now it's (a very high) 8k.
> 
> Warning for uhhh underaged drinking? Ellie's 17 in the flashback here and drinks. Though Ellie and Dina are (both presumably) literally 19 in TLOU2 and downing whiskey like nobody's business already, but y'know. Just in case.
> 
> Also BIG DISCLAIMER: I've never been to therapy and all writings of Ellie in therapy are based in research and cues for the story.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Pigeon"' by Cavetown.

_Knock, knock, knock._

“Go _away._ ”

A few seconds pass. Then, the knock comes again, slower and firmer, verging on hesitant. _Knock. Knock. Knock._

Growling from beneath her covers, she shouts, “Get fuckin’ lost, Joel!”

“It’s _me,_ ” comes a deep voice. Not Joel’s, but someone much younger.

Ellie groans and throws her covers off. 

When she opens the door, Jesse smiles, carefully, apologetically. “Hey.”

Ellie doesn’t smile back. “Hey.” And after a moment of looking at one another, she turns, leaves the door open as she walks back into the room, tugging at her pajamas and tucking the hem of her too-large shirt into the waistband. “Did you just get back?”

“Nah,” he says, flicking the lights on for her, “Well. Sorta. Said hi to some folks, stopped ‘n got some stuff.”

“Uh-huh.” Ellie crawls back into bed and pulls the covers over her lap. She nearly knocks the dirty plate she was eating off of earlier onto the floor, but catches it in time and places it on the nightstand. She rubs her eyes; they’re still aching and wet. 

“What’re you even here for? Shouldn’t you, like, be with Dina, or something?” The question makes Ellie’s mouth bitter.

Jesse shrugs, sits on the couch with a sigh. “Nah, she’s -- y’know -- she gets it.” 

“Wouldn’t you rather be doing, like, anything else?”

“Think I can do ‘anything else’ literally any time I want.” He produces a bottle from his bag and sets it on the coffee table. 

She eyes it warily. “I’m guessing she told you then. About me and Cat.”

He goes and grabs a pair of glasses from her cupboard. Shrugs again and doesn’t reply.

Ellie sighs and shakes her head. “Look, I know what you’re doing and, like, I appreciate it, I guess, but I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“Okay,” he says easily. “Cool. C’mon over here ‘n have a drink then.”

He’s already pouring some for the both of them, looking completely unbothered by her standoffishness.

Suspiciously, she raises a brow. “No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.” Jesse shakes his head and raises a hand. “Cap’n’s honor.”

“...That’s not a thing.” 

He chuckles in that Jesse way that he does, and Ellie relents. She rises and collapses onto the seat next to him, taking her glass, eager for the burn at the back of her throat.

So they sit side by side and drink in complete silence. It seems all too good to be true.

She knows he wants to ask where she went. He was there at the gate when she rode in, ahead of Joel by an hour at least, and had already asked her twice as she dismounted and strode home, to no avail.

But right now he’s quiet as he sips his whiskey, doesn’t hound her like she’s expecting.

When her glass is empty, it rests in her hand, on her stomach, as she slouches down. Jesse’s pouring another for himself.

“It’s not like you to go easy on me like this,” Ellie says, side-eyeing him.

He snorts, regards his glass carefully instead of her. “Yeah, well. Figured you get enough shit from Joel these days, the way he’s got you on house arrest here.”

Jesse doesn’t know how wrong he is. There hadn’t been any grounding spoken of, and Joel hasn’t said a word since Salt Lake. It’s just how Ellie prefers it, but it irks her at the same time. He’s giving her space, like he knows full well that’s what she wants, but he never seemed to care about what she wanted when it _mattered_.

“Yeah,” she says absently.

“And, well...you looked pretty shaken up when you got back ‘n…” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Look, I dunno what went down out there, wherever you went or why, and it ain’t my business, I guess. But it sounded like you could use a l’il company since you ‘n Cat -- _y’know_ \-- not too long after. It’s --” He’s stumbling over his words and failing to string together a seamless sentence. He clears his throat. “I know she was your first girlfriend and, like, y’know I know how that feels --”

“ _Jesse_ \--” Her face reddens.

“You don’t hafta talk about it,” he assures quickly, waving her off, and shrugs high, “We can just _drink_ , if that’s what you want. But if you wanna, like, talk -- y’know. I’m kind of an expert at this point.” And he leans back, crosses a leg over his knee, and knocks the rest of his drink back. It looks casual but Ellie suspects he might be compensating for the awkward mood.

For once, Ellie doesn’t shift uncomfortably when Jesse mentions his souring relationship with Dina. Instead, anxiety prickles at her for a different reason.

As furious as she is with Joel, she’s found herself more steadfast to their rule of never telling anyone about her immunity than ever before. She hasn’t been this insecure about all of her relationships since military school, before she met Riley.

What would any of them think if the cure to the virus had been dwelling among them this whole time? What would they think if they hadn’t known immunity was even a thing in the first place?

What would they think if they knew that Joel had blown humanity’s one chance at survival? And all for -- all for _what?_

The minute she gathers the evidence she has of Joel and coasts near unpacking any reasoning of _why_ he did what he did, she shuts it all down completely. No. It’s not worth it. Nothing could justify this, she tells herself. Nothing could justify seeing how much it’d meant to her that her immunity had some use -- that _she_ had some use -- after Tess and Sam and _Riley,_ and lying to her face about it anyway. Nothing could justify snapping at her over it like _she_ was crazy for hanging onto it, when _his_ lie wasn’t as fucking airtight as he thought.

 _Nothing_.

Hot rage greets her like an old friend. Jesse must notice it because he gently pries her grip from the glass to refill it.

The next sip, along with Jesse’s calming presence, makes her simmer down, just a bit. 

She casts several wary glances towards him. He’s busy examining the posters on her walls and pursing his lips at them.

Jesse had spoken only once -- at a bonfire just outside the walls, near a creek they were all too happy to get away to, long after the flames had died down and were hinting a glow around the kindling, after they’d all reached their threshold and were lounging about lazily -- of an older brother who’d been bitten and turned long before his family's arrival in Jackson. The group had already been trading stories around the circle, and turning, though heavy, had somehow become a subject, much to Ellie’s quiet discomfort. 

James, his brother’s name was. Jesse hadn’t gone on for long but he didn’t talk at all about what happened, other than that he’d been ten at the time. Instead, surprisingly, he talked about how they would make paper airplanes together as kids and send them off from the veranda of their apartment building; how Jesse always admired how James took charge and took care of him when their parents went scavenging; and how James had taught him how to shoot, first at cans, then at birds to bring home for supper.

He had always seemed to treat grief in the same way Dina does -- talking less about death and more about life.

Dina had made a similar confession a little after she and Ellie had first met. It was at a movie-night-turned-sleepover that led to them lying in Dina’s bed and talking about everything and nothing; it was her mother, exceedingly warm and wonderful from Dina’s recollection, who’d turned in front of her and her sister.

With the way they've come to terms with it, Ellie wants to believe they wouldn’t judge her for it, but everyone’s lost _someone_ to the virus, directly or not, and everyone -- _everyone_ \-- operates under the assumption that nothing could’ve been done. 

Ellie now knows otherwise.

To think she’d once felt safe enough to tell them.

Ellie sets her glass down. “Can you tell her I’m sorry? I just -- I shouldn’t have yelled at her like that.”

Jesse nods and rubs a thumb over the surface of his glass thoughtfully. “Yeah. Yeah, she’ll be glad to hear from you.”

“Yeah...”

“She’s just...worried about you, y’know.”

Ellie grinds the palm over her heel into her eye and sighs. “Yeah. I know. She didn’t deserve that.”

A long moment passes, of Ellie fidgeting and Jesse casting several examining glances toward her.

“Oh!” Jesse says suddenly, startling Ellie, before reaching into his bag, “I almost forgot. Gotcha somethin’.”

“What? Ugh, Jesse --”

“Nah, look, I don’t even know if it works but…” He pulls out a dusty game case. Ellie’s eyes instantly go wide. Jesse grins and hands it over. “Found it on patrol today. Not really my thing, but I thought a nerd like you would enjoy it.”

Ellie tugs the hem from her shirt out of her waistband and wipes the cover off. “No way...The _Jak and Daxter Collection!?”_ She opens the case and marvels at the disc. It’s still in-tact. “How’d you find this? I can never find good shit like this on patrol!”

“Went a l’il farther out, found a house with a basement fulla shit.” He takes the game and flips it over to squint at the back of it. “No clue if it’s any good but hey, ‘least you won’t just be playin’ the two games you got anymore.”

As he hands the case back, Ellie looks at him for a moment, warmth flooding her chest, then away, gnawing her lip. She places the game on her coffee table with a quiet, “Thanks,” and looks down at her hands.

She doesn’t deserve this, or him, or Dina, or any of their kindness.

What would they think of her if they _knew?_

“What’s wrong?” Jesse asks, concerned by her sudden silence. “I thought you liked it.”

“I do, it’s just --” She takes a shaky breath. “I-I wish I could tell you. And Dina. Th-The both of you,” she says and her eyes begin to well; when she blinks, they fall down her face.

Immediately she panics and ducks her head to hide her face from Jesse.

She tries to take deep breaths and rubs furiously at her face to keep the tears away but they keep coming, the more embarrassed and distraught she becomes.

“It’s so much more than just Cat breaking up with me, but -- but I _can’t_ \-- “

Jesse’s a touch closer now, placing a warm hand on her back and sighing. She thinks for a frantic moment that it’s of disappointment but when she looks up for a fraction of a second, his eyes are sad and caring, free of spite or scorn.

“I know, man,” he says, like he gets it, but he could never. He pulls her in to rest her head on his shoulder, and Ellie _sobs,_ his kindness troubling, upsetting. She curls and hides her face in her hands and weeps. Jesse’s touch is grounding and solid and it tears her apart.

“I know.”

* * *

Dr. Imelda Bohol is a stout woman with warm brown skin, graying roots, and a kind, round face. She’s a couple heads shorter than Ellie and when she speaks, it’s with an accent Ellie can’t quite place. Not that her knowledge of accents is all that vast in the first place.

Her office is situated where the marketplace touches the residential streets and the inside of it is intimidatingly cozy. Her degree, a beloved remnant from her life before the Outbreak, hangs proud and a little tattered in a clean frame against a cream-painted wall. Directly below it hangs a series of photos of her smiling with other people -- her previous patients, Ellie comes to realize after a moment -- each frame beautiful and different, as if handmade for each personality. 

Ellie is wound up tight when she sits down on the couch across from hers. She can tell Dr. Bohol takes notice of it, but she doesn’t comment.

So, for a long while, Ellie doesn't say anything, not once meeting the therapist’s eyes and forcing her focus on the lining in her jeans. Maria had traded an old toolbelt for a few things that are new and clean and not torn up for her first visit.

Dr. Bohol waits patiently and politely; then after a little while, asks Ellie about her day.

The question shocks Ellie, though she doesn’t know what she had been expecting would end the silence. So...she answers. Very reluctantly.

From there, more little questions come. They’re not pressing, not hard to answer, and the two of them go back and forth, talking about themselves and asking about the other, until little by little Ellie loosens up and Dr. Bohol coaxes her to talk about coming back to Jackson at last.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Um...I’m not entirely sure.” Ellie shrugs. “I like not travelling anymore, fighting my way through hordes, and hunting for my every meal. I...like having a roof over my head again. Being around people again, as, um, crazy as that sounds.”

“So overall it’s good?”

“Well...yeah. I mean, things are a little…” She trails off and sighs. “... _different_."

“Different?”

“Yeah. Jackson’s really...changed. I mean, in the obvious ways, yeah, but also...everyone keeps looking at me like I’m some monster. There’s a...a rumor going around -- I’m sure you’ve heard it at this point because there’s no such thing as being _discreet_ around here -- that I, uh, had a bite on my hand when I first came back. I _didn’t._ ” The lie falls easily from her mouth. She rubs the back of her neck, feeling a nervous smile on her face. “It’s -- It’s pretty crazy. It’s like they’re waiting for me to turn, but it’s been weeks now.”

Dr. Bohol hums, and looks to Ellie’s hand on the arm of the sofa; when she finds not a bite but a healed burn scar and the absence of two fingers, she politely looks away.

“What else have you heard?”

Ellie thinks, and grimaces. “The kids,” she sighs and rubs her forehead, “or teens, or whatever, have been calling me _‘Invincible Ellie’_ when they think I can’t hear.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. I don’t much like it.” 

If she were five years younger -- hell, maybe even two years younger -- she would’ve loved to have a nickname like that, but now, she’s less than thrilled. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the rumor of the bite or because Tommy’s retelling her misadventures in California happened to get around but, though she doesn’t like it either way, she’d prefer it if it was the latter. A niggling feeling tells her it’s not all that likely.

“Er, should I be operating under the assumption that you haven’t heard all the...goings-on in town?”

Dr. Bohol jots something down. “If it helps. I don’t want you to think you should hold back because I might’ve heard it.”

Ellie nods. “Okay. Well...I got into a fight with, um, Tommy. And, like, it’s -- it’s a whole thing. The stuff I did while I was away in California somehow made it back here by word of mouth.” Her hands fidget. “Big stuff. Dangerous stuff. I, uh, almost died. In multiple ways. I wish I could say it was super sensationalized but…” The memories converge and threaten to cave in on her. She squeezes her eyes shut, clears her throat, and looks away.

“A-Anyway, the long and short of it is that it’s different but it’s fine. Mostly. At least _some_ things are familiar again.”

Bohol looks intrigued but seems to lament the loss of wherever Ellie had been going. She prompts instead, “Like?”

“Like...Like Maria.” She smiles. “And the Bison. And work, y’know?” Ellie chuckles despite herself. “Can’t believe I’m saying it but I kinda missed mundane work.”

Dr. Bohol nods and gestures for her to continue. Ellie goes on about how Seth has her washing dishes pretty much for the entire work day, something she’d loathed when she was younger and more eager to get outside Jackson’s walls to patrol. Back then, she’d been restless, unaccustomed to life in a sturdy, work-driven community. And being a patrolman had been lauded as heroic; this much, she could tell within moments of coming to town. It was the closest thing to the dangerous survival she was used to, with Joel and everything before him.

It’s strange to think about now. How simply standing at a huge tub of a sink with comically large and bright yellow gloves and washing dish after dish for hours -- how something she’d once found tedious and tiresome and boring -- could relax her.

It’s not the most fulfilling work, but there’s something about contributing that keeps her grounded.

“It’s, uh...a lot like therapy, I guess,” Ellie finds herself admitting, “How I used to think of it, versus how it really is or turned out to be.”

Dr. Bohol nods understandingly, nudging her pencil against her cheek, then asks, “If you don’t mind my asking, what did you think of therapy?”

Maria had to have told her about Ellie’s hesitation, but she shoves the thought away, in lieu of staring down at her hands again and not answering.

“You can be honest,” says the therapist with a smile in her voice.

Ellie looks to the side to stare at something else, fingers fiddling with a lock of hair that’s been tickling her neck, but finds a lone picture frame on the little table beside the sofa that she hadn’t looked too closely at before. She blinks and squints before she realizes:

It’s of Jesse.

He’s standing there smiling, tall and goofy as ever, with an arm around the much shorter Dr. Bohol. Unlike the other photos, which feature Bohol with her patients in her office, this one looks to have been taken at a previous Summerfest, with the both of them wearing T-shirts and squinting in the sun, their hair wet from the water fights.

He’s exactly as she remembers him before…

Before.

A withering sigh passes from her lips. 

“I-I never liked the thought of it. I thought it was complete bullshit. Like, talking it out...it’s…” She sighs when none of the words in her head fit. “It’s something I...was not able to do most of the time. Not that I didn’t want to when I was younger. That was the thing; I _did_. But no more than one person at a time ever liked or tolerated hearing me talk and...sometimes I even got yelled at for trying to.” She sighs, eyelids heavy with sadness, as her mind shifts from a scruffy, narrow face to a wider, more chiseled one with a full beard, and feels an old wound in her chest.

“Joel...he would snap at me if I tried talking about people who died. People we both cared about when we were travelling together but couldn’t save. He didn’t like talking things through either. Least of all his old life. H-His daughter. Sometimes I feel like that rubbed off on me, made me avoid it more.

“Now when I try, it just hurts. It _hurts_ and I get so angry and I _get_ that there’s supposed to be some kind of progress there, but it doesn’t feel like it. I guess I always wanted something more...real? Something that -- that _feels_ real, I-I mean. Like I’m getting somewhere.”

Dr. Bohol casts a strange look toward Ellie, and Ellie thinks she’s said something stupid. But Bohol’s pen flutters against her report and she taps her chin.

“' _Real’_ ,” she considers, thinking for a long moment. “Hm, let’s roll with that, maybe. What do you think would be considered a ‘real’ solution?”

Ellie blows out another sigh and scratches her chin. “I really don’t know. That’s the thing, I _used_ to think going out there and getting even would make things better. That was about as real as I imagined it. Now? I have no clue.”

“A journal, perhaps?” Bohol suggests.

“What, like...writing in a journal?”

“Exactly, yes.”

“Oh.” It feels simultaneously vindicating and cruel. A part of her hoped this would go somewhere. “I’ve tried keeping journals. I’ve been doing that since I was fourteen, fifteen and even more after he died. Maybe it kept me sane but it didn’t make things go away.”

“What would you write in them?”

“Um, about my nightmares. About...things that happened. Poetry, lyrics, stuff like that. To, um, vent. Short things.”

“Here’s what I think you should do.” Dr. Bohol leans over, digs out a journal from a stack on her end table and inspects it, before handing it to Ellie.

Ellie turns it over in her hands. It’s wide and thick, leatherbound by hand, packed with recycled paper, and heavier than the lightweight journals she’s used to.

“When you’re ready,” Dr. Bohol says, eyes imploring, “I want you to do what you’ve been doing but _this time,_ be as specific as possible. You get a memory, try to write it down. Have an attack, seek out the journal when you can. Keep it near your bed for when you have a nightmare. Walk yourself through it, as best you can.”

It’s a mash of old and new. It’s something she’s a little familiar with, but she’s only ever summarized, jotted things down as quickly as possible, afraid of sparking another panic attack or making herself cry or distracting herself from what, at the time, she’d _thought_ more important.

She’s wary, of course. Because in order for this to come into practice, she needs to hurt -- and though she knows that that’s what needs to happen, _God_ , is she sick of _hurting._

“Only if you want to,” says Dr. Bohol, sensing her wariness, “And only if you’re ready.”

Maybe it could work, Ellie thinks. She’s certainly never tried to get it out like this, always sought to keep it in, stuff it down or let it fuel her. But it doesn’t serve a purpose for her anymore. Maybe it never did.

“Ellie,” Dr. Bohol says, and waits for her to look up, “I want you to know that the point of this isn’t so your trauma or its effects will ‘go away.’ They may never go away, and it’s important to acknowledge that. The point of this -- of therapy -- is so you can understand and deal with your trauma in healthy ways, and so you can heal. And I hope that maybe, in some way, you can come to view our time together as worthwhile and _real_ , as well.”

Ellie doesn’t say anything, thinking of nothing as she stares at Bohol then back down at the journal.

The silence breaks when Dr. Bohol looks at her watch, before smiling kindly at her.

“I’m afraid that’s our time, Ellie.”

Ellie blinks at her. “Oh. Okay.”

“Remember,” Dr. Bohol calls as she heads out, “only if you want to.”

When Ellie steps into the street, she holds the journal in both hands and looks at the blank face of the cover. After a moment, she slips it into the inner pocket of her jacket with a soft breath, feeling the weight and letting it ground her.

She dreams of Jesse again that night, only now she doesn’t see him lying on the floor of the lobby but instead sees him smiling in the sun, lashes and hair shining.

The journal stays under her mattress.

* * *

Winter settles in Jackson and so does the snow, and Ellie and Dina don’t see much of one another.

But a few times a week, they’ll happen to pass by one another on the street, on the way to work or home or the library or the grocer. Ellie will nod, raise a hand, give the tiniest smile; Dina might return the favor on a good day and always lets her eyes linger -- but nothing more.

Sometimes, a man is with Dina.

It makes Ellie avert her eyes completely, and she doesn’t look again till they’ve gone past. His hand edges near hers and he smiles at her in a smitten way when she’s not looking. He’ll say something that makes Dina chuckle and there’s a pull in Ellie’s chest whenever she hears it through the murmur of Jacksonians.

And sometimes, she’ll look for just a second more, he’ll catch her eye and stare hard, and she’ll see something she doesn’t like there. Something menacing, warning, unlike the other stares and far, far worse.

It hadn’t been a shock the first time she’d seen; though she’s dreaded it -- and still does -- she knew it had to happen at some point and maybe...maybe it’s what’s best for Dina, to move on without her. He makes her laugh, accompanies her places. And she’s not alone at all. That’s what matters. If she were, well, it’d be a different story. 

But it hurts every time, seeing them together, laughing, talking, enjoying each other’s company.

So she keeps going her own way. Much later, she’ll pull the journal out from under her mattress and stare at it, before sourly deciding her jealousy is absolutely not worth writing down, feeling both embarrassed and ashamed. It’s a wise choice, she thinks. (It’s not. It’s really not, and she knows it, but she stuffs it away anyway.)

The weeks go by just like this, simply walking past like they’re mere acquaintances, and Ellie bitterly tries not to think about what the man means to Dina or what she means to him.

And what Ellie used to mean to her.

* * *

“How was your day, hun?” asks Min when Dina comes home, kissing her cheek and then JJ’s. 

The sun is just starting to set. It’s the first of many days after Dina had, because of some unexplained feeling, begun pulling back her hours at the tail end of her long shift so that she’d be able to pick JJ up from daycare everyday, rather than only some days. 

There hadn’t been any use in staying that long, as early in the morning as it starts, other than to keep herself -- her brain with all its reeling thoughts, most importantly -- busy throughout the day. But it’s become...tiresome, escaping into work simply to keep herself sane, especially now when her thoughts rove further into realms they hadn’t thought to go before. The work had made it more stressful -- or maybe it was the other way around. She can sort out why. She’s no fool, but she ultimately chooses not to.

“Oh, fine,” she sighs, “Tiring, not terribly eventful, like always.” She sets JJ down on the floor, voice shifting effortlessly from tired to saccharine sweet. “You wanna take off your boots, bud?”

JJ beams and immediately plants his bottom on the mat to try and yank off his boots.

“Ha, look at ‘im go,” Min laughs just as JJ triumphantly pops one boot off. He holds it out for the both of them to see with a shout and an open-mouthed grin and they coo and congratulate him. As he’s wrestling with the other, Min smooths a hand over Dina’s shoulder. “Robin and I have already eaten, so I can get the little ragamuffin changed and feed him. You go wash up.”

When she comes back downstairs in fresh clothes, Min has swapped JJ’s winter wear with a fuzzy little onesie and is currently attempting to feed him his supper, to no avail.

In the living room just past the bar separating the two rooms, Robin is nestled in his armchair with his book, chewing a toothpick, like he always does after supper. As Dina passes through, she puts a hand to his shoulder and leans down to kiss his temple; without looking away from his book, he smiles and pats her hand.

Dina sits down. JJ turns his head away from the spoonful of masked peas stubbornly and Min feigns a pinched look. He giggles at her. 

“Troublesome thing.”

Dina snorts and pinches his cheek. “He’s getting to that age. Aren’t you, bud?”

Min sighs wistfully, “He sure is.”

It takes a great many attempts but eventually JJ decides to stop giving his grandmother grief and accepts the food. Min, satisfied, starts to go on about her day at work and Dina eats and listens as best as she can, nodding and smiling and offering the smallest replies in between sentences, until Min catches on to her.

“Dina, are you alright?” she asks, concerned, “You've been awful quiet lately.”

Dina looks up from her plate. “Oh. Have I?”

“A bit, yeah,” Min says, “Been sleeping in, skipping your runs. I didn’t wanna give you grief for it but I had to wake you up this morning too.”

Dina presses a hand to her eyes. “Ugh. Sorry. I’ve...I’ve just been…” She sighs heavily and leans her head back to rest it against the backrest of the chair. Not once has she ever lied to Min. Robin, sure, multiple times, back when she and Jesse were together. But Min, not once. Dina doesn’t need to weigh her options to know she won’t start today. “I’ve been thinking about Ellie.”

“ _Mm,_ ” Min hums and nods. She doesn’t sound very surprised.

Before, Ellie had been such a delicate topic; Robin and Min never spoke of her unless Dina brought her up in the rare moments where she wanted to talk. She supposes now is no different from the other times. Sometimes, she’s grateful for it, but other times, maybe she would’ve liked an excuse to vent without bringing it up herself.

“She’s sure been keeping herself busy,” Min says conversationally.

“I guess.”

“Pop says he’s seen her helping Maria out a lot. Shovelling sidewalks, de-icing the streets...”

“Always hard at work, that one, everytime I see ‘er,” Robin chimes in from his armchair, not looking up.

“Yeah.”

A moment passes as Dina takes that in. So they know more about Ellie than she does these days. It feels wrong. _Really_ wrong, but what is she supposed to do? She’s made her point, twice now. Ellie’s not her business anymore, and Ellie’s respecting how she feels about it and keeping her distance; they’re through, in the most official sense.

She almost tries to pull it together to finish her meal so she can just go to bed, but Min looks at her with an unnervingly knowing look.

“You miss her, don’t you?” 

Oh, the perks of having a mother again.

“Min…” Dina smooths her hair back. She can feel pressure building behind her eyes. “Of course, I miss her. I’ve _been_ missing her, that’s been my whole problem for the past half year.”

Min’s hand comes to cover Dina’s. It’s warm and comforting. “I know, hun. But I think something’s got to be done,” she says, voice softening delicately. “Before, we didn’t even know if she was going to come back. But now that she’s here...I’m not saying that you have to do anything -- not if you don’t want to -- but I just think if you’ve been thinking about her, maybe that’s something of a sign that you should talk to her. Really talk to her. Maybe it’d do the both of you some good.”

Dina levels her with as solid of a gaze as she can manage.

She’d been hoping, at the very least, to just see how things played out. At this point, she’s used to preparing for the worse when it comes to Ellie. Now should be no different. If Ellie could actually manage to turn things around for herself, then good for her. Dina had previously been resolute in waiting till then, if there would ever be a point where it would be clear, to consider how she’d feel about it.

But she doesn’t like how she’s feeling about things _now._ It kills her to just walk past Ellie like they’re strangers, but she feels helpless to it.

Her hand curls in tighter. A dull ache finds her throat. “I...I just…” She looks down at her plate. “Min, I just don’t know what to say,” she confesses.

“That’s okay.”

“I’ve been telling myself over and over that I’m done, but...it’s not really true.”

Min’s soothing touch does nothing to steady her trembling fist. In her periphery, Robin is peering back at them.

“She let her go,” Dina finds herself whispering, “She let Abby go. And I never thought she could. She was...When she left, she was so... _dead set_ on it that I thought…”

She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath.

“I told her it just can’t...be what it used to be. I’ve gotten angry. I’ve snapped at her. I thought I’d feel better but I don’t.” She rubs a hand down her face. “I don’t know. I just don’t know how I’m feeling about it most times. She’s different. _I’m_ different. It just can’t be the way it was.” When they thought things were going to be okay. When Dina put all her hope and faith into Ellie being there with her.

It’s almost ridiculous, she recognizes, to feel so scared of a longing. She knows she wants Ellie still, after everything, but it’s never so simple. She wants _her_ Ellie, not this silent, foreign enigma that haunts her, drifts at the edge of the street and keeps away. She wants the Ellie she mourned for, the valiant, strong force of nature drawn to Dina whenever possible, the Ellie who proved everyday how much she loved her, who did little things like leave plucked up flowers on her desk and kiss her neck when she passed by and subtly nudge the fridge magnets to form sweet messages and leave them there for Dina to find. 

That was the Ellie she missed. The Ellie that seemed so far away still.

It’s cruel and selfish, she realizes, to think these things, to view her like this, because she’s sure now that Ellie’s trying. Working hard, lending a hand, making herself useful. Talking to someone about her problems. Every time they pass one another Ellie looks more and more...at ease. But there’s something hanging over her still, a deep sadness on her face, a nervous hunch in her back. Dim eyes. A far off stare.

That look is all too familiar.

It’s a whirlwind of confusion, wanting and not wanting at the same time. Being in love with a memory of Ellie and feeling at odds with the present.

“Mama,” JJ calls to her, face messy, making grabby hands at her, “Mama?”

Dina snaps out of her daze and immediately reaches for him, smiling. “Hey, bud, hey,” she coos, “C’mere.” She lifts him from his chair and sits him on her lap, wiping the schmutz from his mouth with her sleeve. “You have a good dinner?”

He nods heavily and clumsily. “Yeah!”

She grins and kisses his forehead. 

With the moment interrupted, Min acquiesces, and stretches and rises from the table, but not before nabbing a pair of little figures from the counter and handing them to a delighted JJ. She rests a hand on Dina’s shoulder and gives her a reassuring smile.

“Just think about it, hun. Okay?”

Dina breathes, watching JJ mash the figures together, and decides, for a moment, to consider. Then, she mirrors her smile.

“Okay.”

* * *

People haven’t exactly warmed up to Ellie and she doesn’t expect them to. She thinks she might have them thoroughly fooled on the dispute of her bite mark, even if Milly and Brock get a look of terror in their eyes and staunchly avoid her whenever possible. Even with the bite rumors behind her now, it doesn’t erase what she did to Dina and JJ.

Dina’s boyfriend, for one -- Jesse knew him once, she thinks, and his name might start with a...T? -- can’t seem to help glaring at her whenever he can. He’s turned out to be a regular at the Bison, often coming in with friends -- but never with Dina, strangely -- and sometimes just happens to sit within view of the kitchen door. Ellie learns rather quickly not to look, else she’s met with daggers.

Even when she doesn’t, she can practically still feel his gaze burning into her back. Out of everyone, he’s the hardest to ignore.

Jackson might be a place for second chances, but third or fourth or fifth or sixth? She doesn’t exactly blame some of them for drawing a line somewhere.

And Tommy...Tommy’s presence in Jackson becomes an ever-present weight in the back of her mind. Though he seems to disappear completely, even from conversation -- the most jarring thing by far, everyone seeming to forget Tommy exists in the first palace -- she gets a continuous shuddery feeling when she expects him to be out and about the way he used to.

Dr. Bohol tells her not to worry so much about what people think of her. She’s working to get better and she’s trying and that’s what should matter. She suggests focusing less on what she thinks people think and more on what she feels, so Ellie tries to.

A few people do seem to come around, understanding her choice to leave -- not that that helps much. They’re mostly older folks. From what she can tell, it’s either because they knew Joel, loved him like most people did, or because they had to make a similar choice themselves. It makes her gut drop to think about. It makes her think back to Eugene and the letter she’d found from his wife begging him to come back for the sake of their daughter, and she feels all the sicker for it.

To her constant surprise, they’ll call her over, chat for a bit, and invite her for a drink sometimes, but she declines every time, and they’ll relent and pat her on the back as she goes, the few exchanges leaving her less sure of herself than an amicable conversation should.

(Seth, a stark outlier in that he doesn’t avoid his gaze or glare nor treat her with uncomfortable understanding, merely offers her lunch in exchange for her work. It’s odd, like his offering of the dishwashing job, because she finds herself, at times, tensing when he comes to talk to her or approaches her with a full plate. But the griping she’s used to never comes once, not even when she fucks up, and she feels crazy to take solace in it.)

Some younger folks -- people she knew once -- have started to wave at her with some hesitation when she shovels walkways or runs errands. The kids are bad as ever, staring for a long time and calling her _Invincible Ellie, look it’s Invincible Ellie, Invincible Ellie_ when they think she can’t hear, but she supposes it can’t be helped.

Mostly, Ellie keeps to herself. Eats what she can, drinks several glasses a day. Goes to therapy. Tries to work up the nerve to crack open her journal but shoves it away. Doesn’t go out like kids her age do and spends her evenings sitting in the living room with Maria, avoiding her worried, motherly looks as she busies herself instead with whatever book she can grab off the shelves.

* * *

When the winds begin to carry something ominous with them, Maria gathers the yearly group of volunteers for blizzard prep and tells Ellie as she comes in one day that she’s already put her name on the roster. She’s also had Seth take Ellie off the schedule for Thursdays and Fridays for three weeks. 

Ellie rolls her eyes at the obvious attempt to get her to socialize but obliges and attends the town hall meetings with her to get filled in on the plans. Maria tells her upfront that she’s to check people’s walls, windows, and doors and that she’ll be assigned a street each week.

The one thing she doesn’t tell Ellie upfront is whose street she’s been assigned first.

* * *

_Dina,_

~~_This is weird but_~~ ~~_Sorry to bother you but_~~ ~~ _Sorry_~~

 _I have no idea if you’re cool with me talking to you like this (I’m sorry if not), but I had to get this to you without things being too_ ~~ _uncomf_~~ ~~_much_~~ _ ~~weird~~ __much (for you or me)._

 _Maria says_ ~~_there’s_ ~~ _that a blizzard may come soon so windows and stuff in everyone’s houses need checking and I’ve got the Jeons’ street. Maria’s told me you’ve been living with them. If you’re not comfortable with me coming over, just say so and I’ll ask to be reassigned. At a guess, I’d be at yours this Thursday around noon-ish._

_Hope you guys are doing well._

_E_

* * *

Her response note comes fairly quickly, through a surprised Maria.

* * *

_Ellie,_

_That’s totally fine. Nobody will be home then but I’ll be on my lunch break if you want some company._

_D_

_P.S. “Too much”? Are you all right?_

* * *

_Dina,_

~~_That’d be_~~ ~~_Great_~~ ~~ _Nice_~~ ~~_Aweso_~~ _Cool. It’s not necessary but if you want to, that’s cool with me._

_E_

_P.S. I’m fine! It’s just...it’s Jesse’s house, you know? I haven’t really been there in a while and (I don’t want to bother you with it but) I’m sorta working on my guilt about things in therapy right now. Things have unfortunately been feeling kinda fresh lately. Not to mention, I really don’t want to overstep here or make you uncomfortable. On top of that, your boyfriend doesn’t seem to like me much and I’m not entirely sure where the boundaries lie in that...area._

* * *

“My _what_ ,” Dina mutters, scanning over Ellie’s scrawling again, “Oh, God, she thinks I have a --?”

* * *

“God’s sake, Ellie, you two’re runnin’ me ragged with this,” Maria says as a new folded note is shoved into Ellie’s hand.

“Wha -- It was just, like, _two_ notes!”

“What on Earth could you two be writin’ about that couldn’t be hashed out in person?”

“Nothing, we just -- _hey,_ it’s private!” Ellie reddens and presses the note to her chest when Maria tries to take a peek at it.

“Alright, alright.” Maria backs off and turns to leave her to it, smiling a little too knowingly over her shoulder as she goes. “It’s good you two are talkin’ in _some_ way.”

* * *

_Ellie,_

_I don’t have a boyfriend. You mean Trevor? Did he say something to you?? WTF???? I’ll have to talk to him._

_D_

~~_(We’ll_~~ ~~_(Can we_~~

_(See you tomorrow.)_

* * *

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Ellie offers a small smile from the porch steps, her sweaty, shaking hands gripping tight at one another in her lap, surely the epitome of the word nervous. Dina avoids her eyes, looks at her feet and scuffs her boot into the concrete.

“Y’know...you coulda just let yourself in,” she says.

“Oh,” Ellie says, casting a glance back at the screen door, “Well, I -- I didn’t wanna assume. Seems like a weird thing to go ahead and do.” She stands when Dina walks up the steps to the door.

“So’s freezing your ass off on the porch. C’mon, it’s chilly out here.”

“Ok -- Okay.”

Ellie follows Dina in, meekly twisting at the strap of her satchel. The house smells warm and faintly of dusky incense, sending her back for a moment to when she was younger and visiting Jesse on the weekends. Warmth finds her chilled cheeks and nose and makes her rub at them with numb fingers.

Silently, Dina settles in the living room and pulls a book from her backpack. Ellie eyes her as she sets her satchel down.

“You’re, um…” She clears her throat awkwardly. “...not gonna eat? I thought this was your lunch break.”

“Not really hungry,” Dina says quietly as she shrugs and opens her book.

Ellie takes that as her cue and goes to the front wall with hunched shoulders. Having worked herself into a groove from the last three houses, she methodically spreads her fingers wide, taps firmly at the wall and listens carefully for a hollow sound. She goes like this, around the place, tapping and listening, unscrewing the plates from the electrical outlets and peering in, and finding most everything satisfactory so far.

Then she checks the windows, opens and closes them and looks for gaps between them and their sills, tucking gapseals into any she finds. 

She feels eyes watching her the whole time and doesn’t think she hears a single page turn from the living room but she pays it no mind.

When she returns to her satchel, wiping her hands at her jeans, Dina is intensely focused on her book. “Um, I’m through with this floor. Just need to check the rooms u-upstairs and I’ll be done.”

Dina only nods, doesn’t look at her.

“Okay,” Ellie mumbles and rocks back to head toward the stairs.

“Hey, um...”

Ellie turns rather quickly. 

Dina still hasn’t looked up but is worrying her lip between her teeth. “About Trevor --”

Ellie feels her brows pull together instantly, something shrivelling in her stomach. “Oh, it’s -- it’s fine.”

“It’s _not,_ though, he shouldn’t --”

“Dina, really,” Ellie says, “I get it. I do.”

Dina looks at her then, finally, incredulously; Ellie’s gut jumps.

“What do you mean ‘you get it’?” Dina asks.

Ellie swallows. “I mean, I get why he acts the way he does. You saw how everyone looked at me. I don’t exactly expect them all to come around.”

“Ellie…” Dina sighs and puts a hand to her forehead. “Look, yes, there’s that but he also has this...I dunno, this paranoid notion that you’re gonna mess with me, whatever that means.”

Ellie furrows her brow, a little offended. “Maybe tell him I wouldn’t do that?”

“I’ve definitely tried.”

Some kind of response burns at the back of her throat -- _why be with him then if he doesn’t trust you? --_ but she stifles it in lieu of a different one.

“Are you really together?”

“ _No,_ ” Dina says, tone firm and indignant.

“But there’s something there.” It starts out like a question but it feels wrong, like it isn’t her place to implore further than that.

Dina is quiet for a long moment. Ellie can tell she’s piecing together the right response. “I -- I dunno, he’s just...He was sort of _there_ for me during...you know.” She sighs, forehead wrinkling slightly with sudden exhaustion. “You can’t really blame me, can you?”

“I don’t like him,” is what Ellie wants to say, hurt raw in her chest. “I love you and I hate the idea of you being with someone else.”

But instead, heart aching, she shrugs and says, “No. I guess not. As long as you’re happy, so am I.”

Neither of them say anything more, stewing in the cold silence set off by words meant to be warm, and when she’s sure Dina really isn’t going to say anything else, Ellie excuses herself and heads upstairs.

* * *

Ellie takes special care in checking the place, examining every window and outer wall, the cellar and the attic and everything in-between meticulously. It’s much more effort than she had put into the other homes and a lot of it, she realizes, might be unnecessary. But it puts her mind at ease to know for sure that Dina and JJ, and Robin and Min, won’t freeze if the blizzard proves to be as bad as Maria thinks.

When she finally wedges a gapseal in the last window in the attic, she reviews the house again in her head; all are accounted for except...

Except for Jesse’s old room. 

She’d avoided it till now.

She wipes her hands on her jeans and sighs heavily.

May as well get it over with so Dina can go back to work.

When she climbs down and lets the stairs back up, the door is just on her left, open just a crack. The handmade caution signs are still there, only now they’re accompanied by a neater sign with Dina’s name on it.

Ellie pushes gently into the room, expecting a blast of Jesse and all the evenings she’d spend hanging out with him, but is met with a garden of Dina. 

It’s as if this is the one room in the familiar house to exist in a completely separate dimension.

The bed has been replaced, the old one having likely been taken out and given to someone who needed it, bedspread wrinkled from the previous night’s sleep.

Jesse’s old posters have been replaced with new ones, old and faded and likely traded, of classic movies and 80s bands. It’s organized and neat and very unlike how Jesse tended to keep it, with only a few clothes peeking out from a haphazardly closed dresser. A stack of books sits on the bedside table, beneath an old lamp. A beat-up old heater rests near the far wall some distance away from the side of the bed.

Her embroidery station sits on the rickety desk, her current project sitting on the center. Several hoops are hung above the desk -- the hamsa, Dina’s initial, and the blossom tree -- beautiful as the day Dina presented them to her, pride in her eyes.

The hobby, Ellie remembers, had been particularly special to Dina. She’d taken it up to keep herself busy in the later months of her pregnancy. Ellie recalls her mounting frustration at being able to do less and less and embroidery seemed to calm her when a few of the older ladies in town introduced it to her. It stuck even past JJ’s birth and Ellie was glad, overjoyed even, to see the things she created and to hear her progress every time she’d pop her head into a room to bug her.

It’s all so jarring to see so much _Dina_ in a room that was once Jesse’s that it almost brings a smile to her face. Almost.

Just as she takes notice that her counterparts to Dina’s hoops are not-so-subtly missing, a crib sitting at the other side of the bed catches her eyes, a homemade mobile hovering above it and a little blanket, baby blue stitched with the letters _JJ,_ lies draped over the railing. When she peers in, she can see several stuffed animals gathered in the corner of it, Ollie among them, and a heating pad half-hidden beneath the covers. 

She rests a hand on the railing, and lets herself sink into the melancholy rising around her.

It hadn’t hit her before now.

 _Jesse’s_ family -- Dina and _their_ son -- staying in _his_ room, long after he’d died. 

Because of Ellie, in both circumstances.

So many times she’d wished he was still alive, to be here for Dina and JJ, be a better provider for them than Ellie had been or could ever hope to be. So many times she’d imagined and simultaneously agonized over a better albeit heart-wrenching version of their lives -- Dina leaving, knowing what’s good for her and her child, to live with an alive Jesse, them marrying, living in a big house, and her being safe and far away from any heartache.

The same future she’d wept over as a teen, knowing deep down it’s a far better future for Dina than any she could have with Ellie

The same future she’ll likely weep over again when Dina finally finds the clarity to forget her, marries someone else, someone like _Trevor,_ and lets him be JJ’s other parent. Loves him wholly and builds a new life with him the way she had Ellie.

She thinks sometimes that...that maybe Dina wouldn’t have had to hurt so much if it were Ellie that rushed into the lobby first.

Ellie swallows down her emotions, attempts to shoo the thoughts away, and blinks back her welling tears. She takes a deep, unsteady breath.

She should’ve figured this would be a bad idea.

Ellie makes quick but thorough work of the room, checking twice, three times at the gap beneath the window sill is filled and it’s locked tight.

She trudges downstairs and tells a surprised Dina that she’s finished.

“You guys know what to do when the blizzard does come,” she says, rubbing tired eyes, “There’s a, uh, town hall meeting in a week to further discuss prep just to tie up any loose ends.”

Dina nods, eyeing her. Ellie averts her eyes.

“I’ll g-get out of your hair then.”

She turns before Dina can respond, scooping up her satchel and nearly flying from the house.

“Ellie, wait.”

Ellie stalls halfway down at the path and turns to find Dina looking frazzled and a little flushed.

“It’s -- It’s still my lunch break. Do -- W-Would you wanna stay maybe? T-Talk a little?”

It’s Ellie’s turn to flush. “Oh. Uh...” Not quite expecting this, she smiles before she can stop herself. A hefty portion of the weight on her shoulders seems to drop and some modicum of hope sparks in her chest. “Sure.”

When Dina smiles back, Ellie thinks the scolding she’ll get later will definitely be worth it.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more complex facets of Ellie's relationship with Joel are a big reason why I relate to her. Him telling her when she was younger to just...NOT talk about traumatic shit always stuck to me (in a very relatable way) so I wanted to include that bit in her therapy.
> 
> You'll probably notice I have a (semi-) definitive number of chapters now. It's honestly very tentative since I've had to split chapters before already (this chapter and the next were originally intended to be one) but it's a fair ballpark. I've also added new tags -- one of which is "Rating May Change." No spoilers, but uh, just keep it mind. 👀

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are greatly appreciated and encouraged! 
> 
> Edit: I made a TLOU side-blog! I'll be posting my art and fic links there too so if you'd like to follow me there, it's @hatosaur!


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